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SSth Congress 1 
3d Session I 



Senate 



I Document 
( No. 199 



Statue 
Hon. John James Ingalls 

Erected in Statuary- Hall of the 
Capitol Buildiiig at Washington 



Proceedings in the Senate and Hotise 
of Representatives on the Occasion of 
the Reception and Acceptance of the 
Statne from the State of Kansas : : : 



^s3^ 



Compileii under the direction of 
The Joint Connuittee ou l^rinting 



Washington 

Governiiient Printing Office 

1905 



» ■ , 00 



^JJA 



>-■ 




Resolved !>y the Senate {the House of Reptrsentalires conciirrint;') , 
That there he printed and bouml in one vohinie the procee<linj;s in 
Conjjress U])i)n tlie acceptance of tile statue of the late John Jamks 
Inc.ai.ls sixteen thousand five hundred copies, of which five thousand 
shall be for the use of the Senate, ten thousand for the use of the 
House of Representatives, and the remaining one thousand five hundred 
shall be for use and distribution by the KO^'^rnor of Kansas; and the 
Secretary of the Treasury is hereljy directed to have printed an enj;ravinj< 
of said statue to accompany said i)roceedinj(s, said en.yraving to be paid 
for out of the appropriation for the Bureau of Kns;ravinj< and Triulinj;. 

Passed the Senate Jainiary 27, 1905. 

Passed the House of Representatives February 9, 1905. 



29 NOVISW 




Smvftu of EnpMvirp u«3 ^^ong 



TABLE OF CONTEXTS. 



Page. 

Resolution proviiUiit; for prinliiij; 5 

Proceedings in tlie Senate 5 

Address of Jlr. Long, of Kansas 7 

Address of Mr. Allison, of Iowa 14 

Address of Mr. Cockrell, of Missouri 23 

Address of Mr. Piatt, of Connecticut 28 

Address of Mr. Gorman, of Maryland 34 

Address of Mr. Spooner, of Wisconsin 36 

Address of iSIr. Daniel, of Virginia 4r 

Proceedings in the House of Representatives. 5r 

Address of Mr. Curtis, of Kansas 53 

Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri 62 

Address of Jlr. Gibson, of Tennessee 69 

Address of Mr. Bovversock, of Kansas 75 

Address of Mr. Wiley, of Alabama 78 

Address of Mr. Hamilton, of Michigan 87 

Address of Mr. Scott, of Kansas 93 

Address of Mr. Campbell, of Kansas 102 

Address of Mr. Miller, of Kansas 105 

Address of Mr. Calderhead, of Kan.sas 1 15 

Address of Mr. Murdock, of Kansas 124 

3 



ACCEPTANCE 

OF 

STATUE OF JOHN JAMES INGALLS 

Proceedings in the Senate 

December 13, 1904. 
Mr. Long submitted the following resolution; which 
was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to : 

Resolved, That exercises appropriate to the reception and acceptance 
from the State of Kansas of the statue of John James Ingalls, erected 
in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, be made the special order for Saturday, 
January 21, 1905. after the conclusion of the routine morning business. 

J.\Xf.\RV 21, 1905. 

The President pro tempore. By a resolution of the 
Senate exercises appropriate to the reception and accept- 
ance of the statue of JoHX J. Ixg.^lls were a.ssigned to 
take place imniediateh- after the completion of the routine 
business to-day. The routine business is completed. 

Mr. Loxc. Mr. President, I request that the following 
letter from the governor of Kansas may be read. 

The President pro tempore. The Senator from Kan- 
sas asks that a letter from the governor of Kan.sas may be 
read. The Chair hears no objection, and it will be read. 

5 



6 Acceptance of Statue of 

TliL- Secretary read as follows: 

Statk oe' Kansas, Kxkcutive Department, 

Topcka, January ly. /gni;. 
7'o the Senate ami I/ouse of t\'ef>irseiitatizvs, Wasliingtoii, /). C: 

Aiiionj; lliL- many (li.sliii.i;uishfil men whose fame has honored the Stale 
of Kansas, the life of no one has ailileil jjrcater Ulster to its history than 
the life of John James Inc.ai.i.S. His name is indelibly inseribed npon 
the most brilliant ])aj;es of the State's history. Grateful for his eminent 
services and proud of his great achievements, the State legislature two years 
ago made an appropriation for the purchase of a suitable statue as a tribute 
to his memory, to be reared in Statuary Hall, where Congress conferred 
upon his people the rare honor of providing a place for it. This beautiful 
and precious piece of statuary is now ready for formal acceptance by the 
Government, and in behalf of the legislature of Kansas and of the people 
they and I rejiresent, I have the great honor and ])leasure of presenting it 
to the people of the I'nited States and tluir re[)resentatives in Congress 
a.ssembled. 

[SEAI,.] IC. W. HocH, Covenwf. 

Mr. IvOxr.. Mr. President, I submit the followini^- con- 
current resolution. 

The Pkksidext pro tempore. The Senator from Kansas 
offers a concurrent resolution, which will be read. 

'I'lie .Secretary read the concurrent resolution, as follows: 

AV,<o/rvv/ by the Senate ( the Home of Representatives concut~ring ) , That 
the statue ot John J. InoaI.I.S, presented by the State of Kansas to be 
placed m Statuary Hall, is accepted in the name of the United States, and 
that the thanks of Congress be tendered the State for the contribution of 
the statue of one of its most eminent citizens, illustrious for his distin- 
guished civic services. 

Second That a copy of these resolutions, suitably engrossed and duly 
authenticated, be transmitte<l to the governor of the State of Kansas. 



Jolin James Iiiga/ls. 



Address of Mr. Long, of Kansas 

Mr. President: Twenty-seven years ago, in an address 
delivered at the dedication of a nionnnient to Jolm Brown, 
John J. Ingalls said: 

The old Hall of the House of Representatives in the Capitol at Wash- 
ington, which is consecrated by the genius, the wisdom, and the patriot- 
ism of the statesmen of the first century of American history, has been 
designated by Congress as a national gallery of statuary, to which each 
State is invited to contribute two bronze or marble statues of her citizens 
illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic and military 
services. It will be long before this silent congregation is complete. 
With tardy footsteps they slowly ascend their pedestals; voiceless orators, 
whose stony eloquence will salute and inspire the generations of freemen 
to come; bronze warriors, whose unsheathed swords seem yet to direct 
the onset, and whose command will pass from century to century, inspir- 
ing an unbroken line of heroes to guard with ceaseless care the heritage 
their valor won. 

He then nrged the people of Kansas to place the statue 
of John Brown in Statuary Hall. This suoge.stion was 
never adopted, but instead the State has just made its first 
contribution to the Hall in the statue of John J. Ingalls. 

One week from to-morrow Kansas will have been a State 
forty-four vears. Din-iny that time, and in the stormy 
period preceding; its admission, many illustrious and jxitri- 
otic citizens did .service for the vState and the nation. ?ilany 
deserve this recognition, which only a State can give, but 
it is a .significant fact that while the names of other citizens 
have been mentioned as entitled to this honor, yet within 
three vears from his death the legislature authorized his 
statue to be procured and placed in .Statuary Hall. Why 



8 Acceptance of Statue of 

was this done so cjuickl\ wluii liis t)\vn suggestion to ])l:ice 
John I'rown there luul not l)eeii a])])roved? He ser\e(l in 
this Cliainber eighteen years — from March 4, 1873, to Marcli 
4, iSqi. His election to the Senate was unexpected. " ()p- 
portnuitN' " knocked at his gate, and he was made a candi- 
date in a niglit. He was elected the next day. His reten- 
tion here, however, was not by chance, but was due tt) the 
pride t)f the Slate in its being the fortunate possessor of a 
Senator who could alwa\s command the attention of the 
nation. 

His .service prior to his election was creditable, but not 
conspicuous, and his work after he left the Senate added 
only to his literar\- fame. It was what he did hen.- which 
fixed his ])lace in history and caused the people of Kansas 
to proceed with pardonable alacrity to select him as the 
State's first representative in Statuary Hall. 

He was the greatest orator our State has ])roduced. 
While he li\ed he was our most noted citizen. In liter- 
ature he had nt) peer in the State and but few in the 
countr\-. His career in tlu- Senate was longer than that 
of any other Senator from Kansas. 

He was President pro tem])ore of the Senate for several 
years, and the late Senator Hoar said that he was the 
best presiding officer he had ever known for conducting 
the business of the Senate. 

There are now only eighteen Senators who served w iih 
Senator Inc.m.i.S. The\' can speak of the worth of his 
.services and what he did here which deser\es remem- 
brance. I observed him from the State, and learned to 
know and to admire him before I ever saw his face. 



Jolui Janus Iiigalls. 9 

In the discussion of questions growing out of the 
rebellion war and in the personal debates he was always 
heard with pleasure by the Senate and by listening 
galleries, to the great delight of his constituents and 
friends at home. Those who served with him know his 
powers of invective and his skill in debate. 

In the zenith of his fame he never wanted for an 
audience, either on this floor or in the galleries. The 
House of Representatives was often left without a quorum 
and this Chamber was filled to overflowing by its Members 
who wished to hear what he had to say. They were 
never disappointed, for he was always interesting and 
entertaining in public and private speech. 

And then the end came. Kansas had been very pro.s- 
perous, and speculation was rife throughout the State. 
Railroads had been built where there was no traffic, and 
towns had been laid out where there were no people. The 
farm was mortgaged for more than its value. Everybod\- 
was in debt. When pay day came the crops had failed. 
There was nothing with which to meet the obligations. 
Discontent took tlie place of contentment. When failures 
come we alwaws endeavor to fix the responsibility on some 
one other than ourselves. The farmers organized, and in 
Kansas the farmers control the State when they wish to 
do so. The\- decided that there was something wrong in 
Washington and that legislation had been enacted which 
was against their interests. They believed that crimes had 
been committed here, and, as IxG.\LLS was Senator when 
they were done, he was held responsible. He desired 
reelection. The time was ripe for revolt. Tlie cry was 



lo Acceptance of Statue of 

raised, "What has Inc.ai.i.s done for Kansas?" It was 
difficult to say, except that he had always successfully 
defended tlie State and its jieople against all attacks made 
here or elsewhere. He had always spoken and voted 
for all laws which had been passed for the benefit of 
ex-l'niou soldiers. Ik- had charnieil and entranced audi- 
ences with his inipre.ssi\-e lantruage and forceful ora- 
tory. He liatl a.'^sisted in the settlement of many jj^reat 
questions, but in finance and the tariff he had not been 
conspicuous. When the.se questions were up in the Senate 
he was usually silent, and those questions were paramount 
in the State at that time. .\ \ictini was desired; a sacrifice 
was demanded. lie was in the ])atliway of the cyclone and 
was swejH before it. Wlien the election was over it wrs 
known that his jxirty did nt)t have a majority in the joint 
as.sembly. It was hoped, however, that many of his old 
friends and supporters who had acted with the new party 
whicli had been organized wouUl relent at the last moment 
and assist in returning liim lo the Senate. For this reason 
hope was not entirely abandoned, and it was belie\ed that 
in the joint assemldy there niiglil yet be a chance for his 
reelection. 

I was a member of the State senate and voted for him in 
caucus and in the joint a.ssenibly. I was intensel\' inter- 
ested in his success and greath' disturbed at his probable 
defeat. Hope was not finalh- abandoned until the vote was 
taken. I was in his room at a hotel in Topeka when it 
was all over and another had been elected. He undouut- 
edly felt keenly the loss of a seat in this body, but he 
maintained a resolute and confident demeanor, which did 



Joint James Ingalls. 11 

not in the least show re.tj-ret or despondenc}'. We all knew 
how much he tliought of the Senate of the United States 
and how hio-hlv he prized his membership in it. He often 
said that no other post in the Government compared in 
power and dignity with a seat in the Senate. No other 
position could ha\-e lured him from this bod>-, which he 
loved so well. He believed that a Senator of the United 
vStates held a more desirable position than any other official. 
So it was that when his fame was greatest and his position 
seeminglv most secure the end came and he retired to pri- 
vate life. His friends and supporters all knew that he 
looked forward to the time when he might again occupy a 
seat in this Chamber, but he made but one effort to secure 
it, and when that campaign ended in the defeat of his party 
he gave up all hope of again entering the iniblic service. 

I shall never forget the last time I heard him speak. It 
was near the little town of Halstead, Kansas, at an open-air 
political meeting. The rain fell continuously during his 
address. He was partially protected by a canvas, while his 
audience sat with raised umbrellas, which almost hid their 
faces fiom the speaker. These unconifortal>le surround- 
ings did not seem to disturb him in the least. He spoke 
with the same fascination of manner and elegance of 
diction that had so often charmed audiences in this 
Chamber. 

During the last vears of his life nn other speaker could 
draw audiences so large or entertain them so well as 

JdllX J. IxCx.\LI.S. 

It was in tho.se days of retirement that he did a thing 
which, alone, would give him fame as long as the Hngli.sh 



1 2 Acceptance of S/atue of 

tonfjiif is spoken, even thonfjli Ik- had nc\cr made a speech 
or written another line (hirinj^ his entire lifetime. He 
wrote — 

OITDRTINITV 

Master of human <lcstinies am I! 

Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. 

Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 

Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 

I knock unbidden once at every j^jate! 

If sleepinj(, wake; if feasting, rise before 

I turn away. It is the hour of fate, 

.\nd they who follow me reach every state 

Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, 

Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. 

I answer not, and I return no more! 

But as the political end had come, so at la.st came the 
end of life. F^or several years his health had been failing, 
and mider the advice of his physicians he left his home in 
Kansas and went to the nK)initains of Xew Mexico, hoping 
there to find relief from the fatal disease. It was not so to 
be, and on Angnst i6, 1900, with only his faithfnl wife bv 
his bedside, he breathed his last and went to the undis- 
covered conntry. 

And then, as if in some measure to atone for the injnstice 
they had done him, the peojile of Kansas pro\-ided that his 
marble statne should stand fore\er in the hall near this 
Chamber in which his great work was done. Past political 
affiliations were forgotten when the re.sohition was passed. 
In the legislatnre were .some who had belonged to the party 
which was organized to retire him from pnblic life. They 
joined his old friends and supporters in preser\ing his 



Joliii James Iiigal/s. 13 

stately and iinposino- fionre in the Capitol of the nation, 
and to-day Kansas will be "ratified to know that while the 
\-oice of John J- Ixgalls will be heard no more, ^■et, in 
cold marble, bnt in striking and perfect likeness, he has 
ascended his pedestal in the old Hall of the House of 
Representatives, there to remain for all future time as a 
worthy and fitting contribution to that historic assemblage. 



14 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Allison, of Iowa 

I\Ir. Pkesidicnt: These proceedings iinolve the presen- 
tation by the State of Kansas to the United States of a 
marble statue of jhe late John Ja.mhs Ingalls, a citizen 
of that State. They also in\olve tlie formal acceptance 
of that statue by the Congress of the United States, in 
pursuance of ])rovisions of the Re\-ised Statutes, derived 
from a law approved July 2, 1864. 

At the time of the pas.sage of that act the work on 
the present Capitol building was nearing completion, it 
having continued without interruption during the .stress 
and strain of the civil war. The new Hall of the Hou.se 
of Representatives was then occupied, having been com- 
pleted .some years l^efore. The old Hall was therefore no 
longer needed for, nor was it adapted to, legislatixe 
purposes. 

\'arious projects were suggested for the utilization of 

the old Hall thus vacated, when the late vSenator Morrill, 

of Wrinonl, then a distinguished Member of the other 

House, presented a jilan for its u.se which, with .some 

modifications, was finalh- agreed to, and is now embodied 

in section 1814 of the Revised Statutes, as follows: 

Tlie President is authorized to invite all the States to provide and 
furnish statues, in marble or bronze, not exceeding two in number for 
each State, of deceased persons who have been citizens thereof and 
illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military 
services, such as each .State may deem to be worthy of this national coin- 



John James Iitgalh. 15 

memoration; anil when so fnrnished the same shall be placed in the old 
Hall of the House i-if Representatives, in the Capitol of the United States, 
which is set apart, or so much thereof as may be necessary, as a national 
Statuary Hall for the purpose herein indicated. 

Mr. Morrill g-ave various reasons why this Hall should be 
thus dedicated, but as the primal reason that "it afforded 
an opportunity to all the States of the Union to select from 
their citizens the most distinguished in the service of their 
State or of the nation." 

After the passage of the law the Hall was prepared for 
the reception of such statues, and from that time until the 
present it has been dedicated wholly to that purpose. 

It was easy for the thirteen original States, and for the 
States admitted into the I'nion soon after the beginning of 
the last centur\-, to select eminent men as their representa- 
tives. The newer States were and are more restricted in 
the opportunit)- to select from their citizens eminent 
historical characters. They have a narrower field for the 
selection of persons "illustrious for historic renown or for 
their distinguished civic or military .services," although 
each of them could make selections eminenth- worth}- of 
this national commemoration. 

A journev to this memorial Hall will disclose that the 
older States have largely selected men distinguished for 
their eminent service to their country before, during, and 
imniediatelv following the Revolutionary period, thus rec- 
ognizing that the .spirit of the law requires that the 
selection shall be made at a period so remote from that in 
which those representatives lived that the antagonisms, 
prejudices, and contentions of the active j)eriods of their 



i6 Acceptance of Statue of 

lives will ha\o passed away, and when those making the 
selection conld impartially pass npon their work as 
entitlinjf them cs])ccially for this distinction. 

In this sjiirit wc find placed in llial Hall statnesof Roger 
Sherman and Jonathan Trnnihiill, Jdlm Winthro]) and 
Sannicl Adams, John Starke and Daniel Webster, Xathanael 
Greene and Roger Williams, Robert Livingston and George 
Clinton, Charles Carroll and Robert P'ulton, and others 
eqnally "illnstrions for their historic renown or for dis- 
tingnished civic or military services." 

Great care has been taken l>y the .several States in the 
.selections already made to choose their most eminent 
sons. Snch care shonld be taken, and donbtle.ss will be, 
in making fnture selections. This appears from the fact 
that althongh more than forty years have pa.ssed since 
the dedication of this Hall, twenty-si.x States are .still 
withonl any re])resentati()n, and fi\e other States are onlv 
partialh' represented. Time in this respect is not impor- 
tant, as with added years in the history of any State the 
list from which to make selection will be constantly 
enlarged. Donbtless in the march of events sitnations 
will arise of the highest moment, disclosing great char- 
acters worth)- of a place in tliis carefiillv chosen galaw. 

No State nnder this act can ha\e more than two rep 
re.sentatives, and the sitnation and snrroundings are snch 
that it will l)e impossible by fnture legislation to add to 
the nnniber. It is wise and fitting, therefore, that each 
State should exerci.se the utmost care and wisdom in 
making its .selections, as what is thus done can not be 
undone. 



Ji'Ini Jdiiics /iigci//s. 17 

Of the States west of the Mississippi Ri\-er, only Mis- 
souri and Texas ha\'e made such selection, and Kansas, 
through her legislature, now presents to Congress, for its 
acceptance, the statue of JoHX James Ingalls, a citizen 
of that State, properly reser\-iiig for the future the addi- 
tional representative statue. This is a fitting thing to 
be done; and it is most gratifying to me to know that 
this selection was made h\ practicalh' the unanimous 
voice of the people of the State. 

Kansas was admitted as a State into the I'nion forty- 
four years ago, having been made a Territor\- under the 
act of Congress passed May 30, 1854, when the Missouri 
Compromise, so called, was repealed. 

Following that repeal, this Territory at once became the 
theater of political acti\'it\' liy two contending forces; one 
seeking to make it a free State, the other to make it a 
slave State. This strife continued for several \-ears, and 
was so great that, virtualh', ci\il war prevailed in man\' 
parts of the Territory, requiring troops of the I'nited 
States to be sent there to preser\'e the peace and to sup- 
press disorder. 

The conditions prevailing there excited the whole coun- 
try. Political parties were actively arrayed against each 
other in sympathy with one side or the other of the 
question of the extension or the restriction of sla\er\-, 
which was the all-al)sorl)ing question during the camjiaign 
of i860 for President antl \'ice-President. This was tlic 
last struggle on this momentous question before the civil 
war. 

17102—05 2 



l8 Acceptance of Statue of 

Two coiislitutiniis were framed l)y two different conven- 
tions. One of these was snlimitted to Congress and re- 
jected; when an enal)lin.<^ act was passed snbmittinjj the 
whole question to all the people of Kansas. This resulted 
in the approwal of what was known as the " Wyandotte 
con.stitntion," under which the TerritotA' was admitted a.s 
a Slate in Jainiar\-, iS6i. 

The scene of this conflict was far away from the den.sely 
.settled portions of the country, and was difficult of access, 
there bcintj practically no railways at that time west of 
the Mi.ssi.ssippi River. .V journey 1)\- water was slow and 
uncertain. A journey 1)\' wagon was over boundless 
prairies, with only here and there a wagon road. 

The people of the State of Ma.ssachn.setts took a deep 
interest in this struggle and many of her .sons migrated 
to the Territory. One of these, John J.-\mf.s Ixg.\ll.s, 
a graduate of Williams College, who had been admitted 
to the bar of Ma.ssachn.setts, impelled, doubtless .some- 
what b\- a si)irit of acKenture and more by an ambition 
to lake part in the affairs of this newl\- projected State, 
at the age of 25 found his wa\- b\- a long and somewhat 
difficult journey by river, rail, and wagon into this new 
counlrv and into the very midst of its contentions and 
slrusrsrlcs. He took the .side of the .sons of his native 
State in the conlrovers\-, and soon became a conspicu- 
ous factor in the aflairs of the Territory; was made a 
member of the con.stitutional convention for the forma- 
tion of the Slate and participated actively in its deliber- 
ations. His ability and force were soon recognized, and 
a friendly biographer records that the constitution itself 



Joliii Janus Iiiocills. 19 

bears the impress of his intellect and knowledge in 
nnich of its phraseoloo;\'. The care taken in its prepa- 
ration and its adaptation Id tlie affairs of this new vState 
is shown by the fact that this constitntion, with a few 
amendments, has stood the test of forty-four \-ears with- 
out material change. 

After the admission of the vStatc into the I'nion ;\Ir. 
Ingai.ls was elected and for several \-ears served as a 
member of the State senate, where he was active in 
framing laws necessar\' for the new State. 

These early services rendered to the Territory of 
Kansas and subsequenth- to the State doubtless exerted 
a very great influence on the legislature, which selected 
him in 1S73 ^^ ^ ^^ person to represent the vState in 
the United States Senate, and this also was undoubtedlv 
a factor in his selection as a suitable person to be rep- 
resented in marble in this National Hall as a leader of 
conspicuous ability in the early struggles of that State 
for the establishment of a free government. 

The legislature of Kansas in I1S73 selected him to 
succeed to the .seat of Senator Pomerov in the Senate. 
Although not a candidate he was chosen with nnanimit\- 
by the legislature as a vSenator in this bod\-. He took the 
oath of office on the 4th of March, 1873. ^^^ ^^'^^ twice 
reelected, and served in this bod\- for eighteen consecutive 
years. That he served with great al)ilit\- and with credit 
to his vState and to his country during this long period is 
well attested by the records of the vSenate. 

He was an intense lover of his State. He was vigorous 
in support of its interests here and of all important 



20 Acceptance of Statue of 

measures lookinji^ to the development of tliat portion of 
our country lyin<,r west of the Mississippi River. 

Earh- in liis service lie was assigned to important com- 
mittees and made chairman of the Committee on the 
District of Colnmljia. Ho was also made a member of the 
Committee on Indian Affairs and of the Committee on 
Rules. Later he was a.ssigned to the Committee on the 
Judiciary, all of which positions he held until the end 
of his last term of service. 

He ])articii)ated active!)- in the preparation of man\- 
important i)nblic measures referred to the committees of 
which he was a member and in .securing their passage 
througii the Senate. 

He was fre<[uenlly selected b\' order of the Senate to 
perform special ser\-ices of importance. He was one of 
the tellers on the part of the Senate in the celebrated 
electoral count of 1877, which lasted from the first 
\Vcdncsda\- in February until the morning of the day 
preceding the inauguration of President Hayes. 

He took an active ])art in the general debates of the 
Senate, warmly ad\-ocatin^ measures approved by him and 
with etjual warmth se\crely criticising measures that did 
not meet his approval. 

He was regarded as one of the most efTecti\e debaters 
on tiie floor t)f the .Senate, .\lways cool and collected 
and ha\iug full infovuialion on the subjects he di.scu.ssed, 
he was formidable on the floor. He had a facility of 
expression rarely equaled and a keen .sense of Innnor. 
He was a master of invective and often indulged in 
telling and biting sarcasm. He was not only an effective 



• John James liiga/ls. 21 

debater, hut lie was distinj^uiished as a fascinatin,s^ and 
persuasive orator. It can be said of him, as it caii be 
said at any time of hut few members of the Senate, tliat 
when he was to speak the galleries were full. It was 
enoticrh to .say that " Ixd.ALLS is to speak to-day " to 
attract a large and appreciative audience, not only in the 
galleries but from the House and in the seats ou the 
Senate floor. 

For such extended speeches upon any particular sub- 
ject he made careful and painstaking preparation, eveu 
to the precise phra.seology employed. 

I .should say that his greatest accomplishment was his 
command of language and his ability to use it in public 
debate. ■ ' 

He often presided as President of the Senate. He was 
elected permanent President pro tempore, as we term it, 
in December, 1887, and continuously presided as such 
until March 4, 1889. He was one of the ablest and mo.st 
.satisfactory presiding of^cers certainh' during my experi- 
ence here. 

The State of Kansas has been Republican practical! v 
from the time of its admission into the l^nion until the 
present. In 1872, however, there was what might be 
called a rebellion within the party against tho.se who 
had ])een conspicuous among its leaders in Congress, and 
Senator Ixg.all.s was elected by general consent of the 
party 'in the .State to the Senatorial seat, which he con- 
tinuously occupied until his retirement in i8gi. He was 
twice reelected without opposition, and would probablv 
have remained in the Senate up to the time of his death 



22 Acceptance of Slaiitc of 

but for the fact llial in iS(/) a political revohuion 
occurrtd in the vState aj^ainst the Republican party, plac- 
ino^ it in the minority in the lej^islature, when the opposi- 
tion united in selecting .Mr. I'effer as his successor. The 
revolution, howexer, which resulted in his defeat was 
political and not personal. 

Senator In(;ai.i.s was a lover of the best literature. 
He wrote many celebrated articles on public affairs and 
many of a ])urely literary character. His poem on "Op- 
portunity," which has ju.st been read, is a gem sufficient 
in it.self to innnortalize its author. 

Thus it is that John Ja.mi-:s Ixoai.i.s is illustrious for 
his historic renown as well as for his distinguished civic 
services, an'l is worth}- of national commemoration by 
the State of Kansas. It is fitting, therefore, that his 
statue in marble should be accepted by Congress and 
placed in National Statuary Hall. 

It was my fortune to enter the Senate on the same 
da\ with Senator Ixcai.i.s and to .serve with him during 
the entire period of his service. With the exception of 
two years, I had a .seat next to him in this Chamber. 
Our relations weio the mo.st cordial during all that time. 
I esteemed and valued him for his many kindly and 
genial personal ciualities, as well as for his great abilit)-, 
and no one regretted more than 1 the political change 
in the .State which made it necessar\' for him to retire 
from the acti\ities of the Senate. 



Jolui Jaii/cs I/igal/s. 



Address of Mr. Cockrell, of Missouri 

Mr. President: The statute of the United States of 
Julv 2, 1864, authorized the President — 

To invite all the States to provide and furnish statues in marble or 
bronze, not exceeding two in number for each vState, of deceased per- 
sons who have been citizens thereof and illustrious for their historic 
renown or for distinguished civic or military services such as each 
State may deem to be worthy of this national commemoration; and 
when so furnished the same shall be placed in the old Hall of the 
House of Representatives in the Capitol of the United States, which is 
set apart, or so much thereof as may be necessary, as a National Stat- 
uary Hall for the purpose herein indicated. 

Thi.s law dedicates the beautiful chamber, the old Hall 
of the House of Representatives in this Capitol, as a gal- 
lery for the marble or bronze statues of not exceeding 
two deceased persons for each State who have been citi- 
zens thereof and illustrious for their historic renown or 
for distinguished ci\'ic or military services, such as each 
State may deem to be wortln- of such commemoration, 
and leaves the selection to the absolute discretion of 
each State. It is an appropriate and wi.se provision. 
The State of Kansas, in providing and furnishing the 
marble statue of John J.^.mes Ing.\lls as one of the two 
deceased persons for that State deemed worthy of 
national commemoration, has chosen appropriately and 
wiseh'. As one of the vSenators in this Chamber from 
the State of Missouri, adjoining and bordering the State 
of Kansas on its entire eastern line, I take great pleas- 
ure in favoring the adoption of the pending resolution 



24 Acceptance of Statue of 

uul the acceptance of the statue of John Jamks Ixgali.s 
to be placed in the National Statuary Hall in this Capitol. 

John Jamks Incalls was born in the town of Mid- 
dleton, in Essex Count\-, in the State of Massachusetts, on 
December 29, 1833. His original ancestor on his father's 
side was Kdniund Inj^alls, or. as then written, Ingall. who 
came from West iMii^land in 162S and founded the city 
of L\-nn, in Essex Comity, Mass. His father, Elias T. 
Ingalls, of Haverhill, Ma.ss., was a typical New Eng- 
lander — devout, austere, scholarly, intended for one of the 
learned profession.s. 

His original ancestor on his mother's side was Ac|uila 
Chase, who .settled in i^w ''i -'^'<-'^\' Hampshire. His 
mother was Eliza Chase. On both sides he came from an 
unbroken strain of Puritan blood without intermixture. 
He was the oldest of nine children, was educated in the 
public schools until In- was 16, and then continued his 
studies preparatory for college under a private tutor. 

He entered Williams College at Williamstown, Mass., in 
September, nSsi, and graduated in 1855. His boldness of 
character was clearh' foreshadowed in his college course. 

In his graduating oration on " Mummy life," he in.serted 
a scathing review of his college faculty, which they cut out 
when the\- revised his ]iroducliou prior to delivery. 

Notwithstanding this, in his delivery he spoke all they 
had cut out and paid his respects to the faculty in trench- 
ant criticism. 

For this offense his diploma was withheld until 1864. 
However, twenty years after granting his diploma, his 



[oliu Jaiitcs Ingalls. 25 

alma mater lionored him with the degree of doctor of 
laws. 

After his s^Tadnation he studied law and was admitted to 
the bar in 1857, and removed to Kansas, then a Territory, 
in 1858, and located at Atchison. 

He was a delegate to the \\'\andotte constitutional con- 
vention in 1859, secretary of the Territorial council in 
i860, secretar\' of the State senate in 1.S61, the first session 
after the admi.ssion of the Territory as a State in the 
I'nion. 

During the session the question of a design for the great 
seal of the State came up. I quote from his own statement 
in regard to it : 

I suggested a sketch embracing a single star rising from the clouds at 
the base of a field, with the constellation (representing the number of 
States then in the Union) above, accompanied by the motto, " .-^d astra 
per aspera." The clouds at the base were intended to represent the perils 
and troubles of our Territorial history; the star emerging therefrom the 
new State; the constellation, like that on the flag, the Union, to which 
after a stormy struggle it had been admitted. 

Additions were made to this proposed design which 
Mr. Ing.^LLS always thought destroyed the beaut\' and 
simplicity of his design. 

He was a member of the State .senate of Kansas from 
Atchison Count\' in 1S62; was major, lieutenant-colonel, 
and judge-advocate, Kansas Volunteers, 1863 to 1865, and 
was editor of the .\tchison Champion in 1863, 1864, and 
1865, and was the anti-Lane candidate for lieutenant- 
governor in 1862 and again in 1S64, and was defeated 
each time. He was elected to the I'nited States Sen- 
ate as a Republican to succeed vSenator vS. C. Pomeroy, 



26 Acceptance of Statue of 

Ri.])iil)licaii, and took lii^ seal Maicli 4, 1S73, and was 
snbseqncnlly twice reelected and served in this Chamber 
from March 4, 1873, to Marcli 3, 1.S91, ei.sjhteen years' 
continiions service. 

Prior to 1873 lie dexoled nincli time ttj literary work, 
mnch of whicli was in praise of his adopted State, clearly 
manifestiiifj an admiration and lo\e for his State and 
peo])le. 

He wrote a series of brilliant articles for magazines 
descripti\e of western life and adventure, which won for 
him a national reputation on account of his classical 
sl\le, incisive method, and a Inxurianl wealth of words. 

His oft-quoted estimate of President Lincoln .shows 
clearly his (.■])i,L;rannnatic style. 

.\l)rahain Lincoln, Ihc greatest leader of all, liad the liuiiiblcst origin 
and scantiest scholarshi]), yet he surpassed all orators in eloquence, all 
dil)loinats in wisdom, all statesmen in foresight, and the most ambi- 
tious in fame. 

His connnand of langiuige was most remarkable. His 
sparkling words seemed to come to him easily and 
naturall\- in conversation, in jfublic speaking, and in 
writing, and few men equaled him in the correct and 
scholarly command of the P^uglish language. 

As an orator he was elocjuent and interesting, and his 
powers of expres.sion attained tlieir highest de\elopmcnl. 

In his uKuiorial address on Representative James X. 
P.urnes, of Missouri, he .said : 

In the democracy of the dead all men at last are e<|ual. There is neither 
rank, .station, nor i)rerogative in th>' repnlilic of the grave, .\t this fatal 
threshold the pliilosopher cea.ses to he wise and the song of the poet is 
silent. , Dives relinquishes his millions and I,azarus his rags. The ]x)or 
man is as rich as the richest and the rich man as poor as the pauper. The 



John Jaiiii's Iiigalls. 27 

creditor loses his usury anil the debtor is acquitted of his oblis^alion. 
There the proud man surrenders his dignities, the politican his honors, 
the worldling his pleasures, the invalid needs no ])hysician, and the laborer 
rests from unrequited toil. Here at last is Nature's final decree in equity. 
* * * The strongest there has no supremacy and the weakest needs no 
defense. The mightiest captain succumbs to the invincible adversary, 
who disarms alike the victor and the vanquished. 

Ill political discussions he was a partisan and was dras- 
tic ill his laii^uao'e. 

He ser\'ed i.ni main- important coniinittees of the .Sen- 
ate and was atteiiti\-e to his duties. After the death of 
Vice-President Hendricks he was chosen President pro 
tempore of the Senate, and was a most efficient presid- 
ino^ officer, eminently able, courteous, dignified, and ab.so- 
lutely impartial, and never manifested aiiv partisan actions. 

My first personal acquaintance with Senator Ixc.ai.i.s 
was in March, 1H-5. 

In a \ery friendly and cordial manner he introduced 
himself to nie, and we became and remained personal 
friends during his eighteen ^•ears in this Chamber, 

During his eighteen years' .ser\-ice in this bod\' there 
was never a breath of suspicion or doubt about his al)S(j- 
lute personal and Senatorial integrit\-, 

John James Ingall.s is doubtless the most distin- 
guished statesman, the most brilliant orator, and the most 
versatile and cla.ssic writer among the main- able men 
the State of Kansas has produced. The State of KaiLsas 
and the good pi.-()])le of the State have honored the .State 
and themseh'es in ])ro\-idiug and furuishiug the statue 
in commemoration of Joiix J. Ixc.m.i.s for the .Statuarv 
Hall, in this Caiiitol. 



28 Acceptance of Statue oj 



Address of Mr. Piatt, of Connecticut 

;\Ir.' Prksidhnt: In nalurt.- it oIIlii liappens that a tree 
or plant transferred from its nati\e soil to some far-away 
region attains a stronger, healthier, more vigorous and 
perfect growth than it would ha\e enjoyed in its original 
locality. New soil, new cultivation, and the different 
air and sunshine seem to supply elements of growth and 
development lacking in its first environment. If a fruit- 
bearing tree, its fruit acquires a superior flavor. If a 
flowering plant, its blossom takes on a new beaut>-, not 
that the character of the tree or plant is radically changed, 
but its natural characteristics and qualities are accent- 
uated bv something derived from its new locality, to its 
vast improvenieiU. There is nothing in nature more 
curious and instructive than the change for the better 
which so fiequently comes from transplanting. .\s in 
the natural world, so in the mental and moral world, 
there is nothing more curious or marked in human 
civilization tiian the change which has come to men 
in consequence t)f their migration. The im])ul.se to seek 
a new home in what is hoped to be a better country 
has altered the map f)f the world and done much to 
perfect the civilization of mankind. 

At this hour the Senate, in which all the States are 
represented, joins with Kansas in jKwing its tribute of 
admiration and respect to the most i)rominent and illns- 



Joliii Jaiiti'S higalls. 29 

trions citizen of that State, now, alas! dej^arted, whose 
statue is henceforth to occupy a pedestal in our National 
vStatuary Hall. 

A New Eno-land boy, of Puritan ancestr\', nurtured 
bv a New Kng-land mother in a New Eno;land iKinie, 
graduated at a New England college, admitted to prac- 
tice as a New England lawyer, turned in his \outh to 
what was then the far West, to take on new growth, 
acquire new power and strength, to become foremost in 
the building of a new State, to be honored while \et in 
his early manhood as its representati\e in the Senate 
of the Ignited States, there for eighteen years to make 
his mark on the policies and destinies of the Republic — 
this, in a word, is the condensed life history of ex-Senator 
John J. Ingalls. 

It is the old story over again. Perhaps there is no 
better illustration in all our histor\' of the growth in 
power and influence of a man in con.sequence of his migra- 
tion from the settled habits and institutions of the tlasl to 
the new and unde\'eloped regions of the West. Had the 
\>o\ IXGALLS remained in ^lassachusetts he would probabh- 
ne\'er have been a representati\'e of that State either in the 
Senate or the House. His whole life work would have 
been alonaf different lines, and thous/h he could never lu-we 
been inconspicuous, he would doubtless ne\er luue left a 
lasting impression upon the history of our countr\-. He 
gave no early promise of particular interest in public 
affairs; no indication tliat statecraft would !)<_■ with him a 
favorite pursuit. In his bo^'hood and xouiig manhood his 
tastes were scholarK- and literar\'. 



30 Acceptance of Statue of 

Riinainint; in W-w England, Ik- wonld uncinestionably 
have Ix-cn dislinjj^uished as an anllior, a ])<)et, a critic, a 
historian, rather than as an eminent lawyer or statesman. 
Once settled in Kansas, ho\ve\er, the gateway of prefer- 
ment swung wide open to him. New thoughts, purpo.ses, 
hopes, and aspirations took possession of him. His choice 
was well made. Territorial Kan.sas had been born in 
agony and baptized in bloc id. Within its borders the first 
great battle between human slavery and freedom had been 
fought — was, indeed, still in jirogre-ss. It ended only at 
.\ppomattox. Ino.-\lls had in him not only the Puritan 
spirit of lilierty, but the ancestral warlike spirit of the 
Xorlhmen. He was of the lineage of Thor. He had been 
taught to love freedom. He was ready to do battle for it. 
The blood\' contlicl in Kansas was over, but iIk- ])eaceful, 
though no less acute, struggle was still on. A State 
which for a while seemed foredoomed to sla\ery was to 
be bnilded on the foundation of freedoui. 

Making his home in Kansas in 1S58, we find Ing.\lls 
tile ue.xt year a niemfier of the Wyandotte convention, in 
which was framed the constitution ujxin wliicli Kansas 
was to be admitted into the Union as a free State, and 
although practicalh- a stranger in the growing Territory 
we find his worth and influence already recognized 
insomuch that the new constitution was largeh' the result 
of his thought and his facile jien. Kansas, free and 
fearless, became the object of his intense lo\e and de\oti<)u. 
Looking at his record, his ]xin in constitution making 
and State building, these his earlier years .seem to me 
the UKJSt significant. He became a noted Senator, and 



Joint James Iiigalls. 31 

as such acquired a great reputation, but I doubt if in all 
his after life he e\-er rendered more \-aluable service to 
his State than \\l;cn he helped to construct and so 
largeh' molded its orisj-inal constitution, \vhicli, like that 
of the Republic, followed, and was the culmination of 
an intense, weary, and bloodv struggle for libert\', and, 
like our National Constitution, was ordained to secure 
the blessings of liberty to the people of Kansas. The 
scholar, the poet, the dreamer, the word painter, found 
his higher and nobler work in State building. Ixc^lls 
was by nature a genius. The necessities and opportunities 
of his new life made him a practical statesman. 

I first saw him when I came to the Senate in 1879. 
He had then lieen six \-ears a Senator, and his name 
and fame had alread\- filled the cotintr\-. It was an able 
vSenate. It comprised many vSenators of great learning, 
ability, and influence, but I tliink I make no invidious 
comparison when I say that its three most conspicuous 
members. Senators most in the pulilic e\e, were Conkliug, 
Blaine, and Ixti.VLL.S, each a unique and fcrceful penson- 
alit\', and of the.se three Ix(iALLS was by no means the 
least conspicuous or distinguished. \'isitors to the 
Senate gallery wished to have first pointed out to them 
these three men, and took away more clearly impressed 
upon their mental vision the picture of Ix(;.^m,s than of 
either Blaine or Conkliug. He was, indeed, physicallv 
and mentalh', the most unique personaIit\- in the Senate. 
His strong indixiduality of face, his bearing, his incisive 
speech, his marvelous expression of ideas, attracted and 
fascinated all who saw and heard him. Few Senators 



32 Acceptance of Sla/ue of 

have excelled liiiii in scholarslii]); none I think in jjoetic 
temperanienl ; and he was iIr- ])eer oi any in his 
knowledjje of our histor\- and ability in discussion. 

Senatorial oratory was e\-cn then in its transition period. 
Studied, oi'nate, and classic eloquence was disappearing, 
gi\in.!jf place to precise and accurate statement and analysis. 
Hut Ixi.Ai.i.s possessed oratorical power all his own — a 
fresh style of oratory, perfect, eflfecti\x-, unmatched, either 
in remote or modern times. Neither Demosthenes nor 
Webster was a more complete (jrator than IxG.\ij..s. Xo 
other Senator attracted .so many hearers or cast such a spell 
u])on his listeners. So far as I have known the Senate, or 
read its history, I think no Senator has e\er equaled 
l.\r,.\i,LS as a master of language. The words with which 
he clothed his thoughts ma\' ha\e been studied, but .seemed 
to be spontaneously uttered ; indeed, in the heat of debate, 
where formal preparation was impo.ssible, his wonderful use 
of the English language was as striking as in his more 
elaborate speeches. 

It was a delight to listen to him, and his perfect sen- 
tences, preci.se and beautiful rhetoric, will ue\er be for- 
gotten by any who heard him. He was not a mere phrase 
maker who conjtired and juggled with words and forms of 
speech, but a logician. w':o.se argument compelled attention 
and carried conviction. He was a fearless Senator. He 
never shunned a conflict ; ne\er retreated from an oppo- 
nent. He said in a magazine article, I think, of e.\-Senator 
Chandler, of Michigan, " His weapon was the butcher's 
cleaver and not the rapier." Ing.\ll"s weapon was more 
like the rapier or sciiniter. Senators will recall that .scene 



John J a Dies I lis; alls. 2>Z 

in The Talisman wlierc Kini,^ Richard, jnst risen from a 
sick bed, with his two-handed sword severed a bar of iron, 
and Saladin witli his scimiter di\-ided the floating and 
flimsy veil of silk. Ingalus wielded the scimiter of Saladin 
rather than the sword of Richard, and the dexterit\- with 
which he handled it was a marvel to all. 

Durinof his ser\-ice in the Senate he constantly gained 
in influence and power and as constantly grew in the 
estimation of his State. During all the eighteen vears 
of his serv'ice, it is no disparagement of all the other able 
and strong men of Kansas to say that he was easil)' its 
most prominent and illustrious citizen. A son of New 
England, the man of Kansas. It was a strange and sad 
eccentricity of Kansas that relegated him to private life. 
It was the loss of the State rather than his own personal 
loss. He was as strong in defeat and in private life as 
he had been in his Senatorial career. His ptiblic life 
and ser\-ices were indeed ended, but his nattire was not 
soured nor embittered. All his lo\-e of the beautiful and 
true of the State of his adoption, all the i3oetr\' of his 
soul shone out more clearly than was possible while a 
Senator. He accepted his fate like a hero, knowing, I 
think, that the day would come when his State would 
do him yet higher honor and cherish for him a still 
higher regard. Whether he knew this or not, that time 
has come, and to-day the State honors him in death 
more than it ever did in life by placing his statue along- 
side those of the great and noble men whose lives have 
been so potential in molding the histor\- and destin\' of 
our Republic. 

17102— <J5 3 



34 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Gorman, of Maryland 

Mr. 1'ki;sii)1-..\t: It is a j)rivilc<jc to pay tribute to the 
memory of Joiix J. IXGALLS. His was a colossal figure 
on the stage of our affairs. There may have been ora- 
tors as eloquent, statesmen as wise, politicians as coura- 
geous, citizens as patriotic and devoted, but I recall few, 
if any, who, as orator, statesman, politician, and patriot, 
united in one person so many of these virtues and in 
stich conspicuous uuinifestation. 

He was a master of our language. He made of it a 
splendid vet a docile instrument. Logic, pathos, fascina- 
tion, invective, and entreaty — these forces he employed at 
will and irresistibly. 

His speech was clear, incisive, musical, and luminous. 
His arguments were always persuasive and enlightened, 
his nuitives transparently high and ])ure. His denimcia- 
tions were terrible, his irony a blight. He hated deceit, 
hypocrisy, pretense, and cowardice. He laid a ruthless 
hand on treachery and meanness; he treated with his scorn 
the fawning knee. He loved his country with unboimded 
pa.ssion. He worshiped justice, candor, patriotism. 

John J. Inc.ai.i.s was a type of the noblest and most 
usefid American citizenship. ( )ne of the thousands sent 
out of New England as teachers, pioneers, examples, 
inspirations, he took with him to desert places the culture 
and the pinpo.se of a perfected civilization. He lifted in 
the wilderness a \oice of leading and of grace. .\nd 
when he came from Kansas to the Senate he came with a 



John Jit UK'S IiigaHs. 35 

conscience adjusted to realities, with a judgment informed 
bv deep and broad experience, with standards and philoso- 
pliies that iit the things of life. The dreamer fresh from 
cloistered peace had been trained in the great schools of 
action. Shaped anew in the clashes and the conflicts of 
the border, his thoughts were turned to actual aims, his 
ambitions divested of their veils. He became a power on 
this floor. 

The forces he could sunnuon to his sen.'ice and which he 
knew how to marshal to important ends were forces which 
the greatest giants of the da\' had need to reckon with. 
He was an antagonist whom the strongest were careful to 
approach with caution and respect. Not onh" an orator, 
but a scholar ; not only a statesman, but a patriot, he used 
the graces of the academv to deck the massive structui'e of 
experience in \-ital things. He was no complacent doctri- 
naire, no suave juggler of abstractions. He was an alert 
and pulsing expert in the science of politics and statecraft. 

Of his brilliant and iDrofound attainments, his memorable 
deeds, his lofty purposes, and his notable achievements, 
what need to speak? These have passed into the record. 
Thev constitute a splendid chapter in our histor}-. And, in 
addition to his triumphs as a debater, a leader, and a strate- 
gist, he developed into one of the wisest, fairest, and most 
enlightened presiding officers the Senate has ever known. 

It was my fortune to know him well. It fell to m\- lot 
to oppose him at man^■ times and on man\- mo\'ing i.ssues, 
but I always recognized the sincerity of his con\'icti<ins, 
the fine courage of his bearing, the chi\-alric purpose of his 
soul, and I am proud to lay u]ion his monument this wreath 
of my esteem. 



36 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Spooner, of Wisconsin 

Mr. I'RI'.SIDKNT: Mv admiration for the o^eiiius of Sena- 
tor Ixc.Ai.i.S and a \ery ttiuki nKinory of the friendsliiji 
willi whicli he honored me when 1 came, a stranger, to this 
body led me to accept with alacrity an invitation to speak 
of him and his career on this occasion, in the hope, which 
has proven a vain one, that pnhlic dtU\ wonld permit nie 
leisure for adequate preparation. I can not suffer this 
ceremonial in his honor to pass without some contribution 
from me, albeit fully aware thai I can not add anything of 
worth to the appro])riate and beautiful addresses to which 
the Senate has listened. 

At the beginning of my .service here, now uearK- twenty 
vears ago, he was chairman of the Committee on the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and at his recjuest — and his welcome to 
me was a charming one — I became a member of that com- 
mittee. Thus it happened that I was brought early into 
clo.se personal relation with him in the discharge of public 
dutv, and came to appreciate, as one will in such associa- 
tion, his intellectual power and characteristics. He was 
then at the zenith of his power and fame. 

Little has been .said of liim to-flay as a lawyer. He 
came, perhaps, too earl>- into j)ublic life to have won great 
fame at the bar, Init I found him pos.se.s.sed of a remarkable 
aptitude for the law, with wide and accurate knowledge of 
the fundamental i)rinciples of the law. He possessed legal 



Jolin Janus Iiio;a!ls. 37 

intuition, and reached as quickly the heart of a legal prob- 
lem as did avnone of the great lawyers in this liody. He 
served as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, 
whose membership was peculiarly distinguished for ability 
and learning. There were on that committee Senators 
of much larger experience, of fuller knowledge of some 
branches of the law, but none with finer power of generali- 
zation or more rapid and accurate analysis. Had it been 
his lot to pursue the practice of his profession it can not be 
doubted that he would have won great fame as a lawyer. 

He was in ever\' way a marked man, tall, slender, erect; 
with keen, piercing eyes, great dignity of bearing, and face 
e\-idencing strength of mind and character. He would inev- 
itablv attract instant attention in anv assemblage. 

He was, as has been said, a great orator. During his 
term of service there were many great orators in this body 
whose names need not be mentioned to be brought to mind. 
In'GALLS was unlike any of them, but inferior to none of 
them. Mr. \'est, of Missouri, who not long ago was laid 
to rest, was one of the most enchanting orators to whom 
I ever listened. Senator Ixg.\lls was utterly luilike him, 
but of wonderful gifts and power. In oratory, as in liter- 
ary style, he was, as has been said by the Senator from 
Connecticut [I\Ir. Piatt] unique. It was not the beauty of 
his diction — and that was unsurpassed — nor was it the 
charm or quality of his voice, and yet that was rare. It 
was a combination of qualities and gifts altogether peculiar 
to himself. Epigram, wit, humor, logic, sarcasm, in\-ective, 
philosophy, and a rich knowledge of the classics, ancient 
and modern, were obedient to his will and at liis instant 



38 Acceptance of Slahte of 

Cdiiiinand. He spoke witliout effort, and his natural tones 
ct)ul(l be heard distinctly throns^hont the Chamber. It has 
been truthfully said that when it was known that he was to 
address the Senate the <^alleries were filled, every Senator 
was in his seat, troops of Members came from the other 
l)o(ly, and it may be added that the corridors were filled 
with people \aiidy seekiuij; admission. There has been in 
my tlay here no Senator to whose speeches there came such 
throntrs to listen as to those of vSenator Inc.m.i.s. 

lie was a threat debater. lie would prepare addre.s.ses 
difficult for anyone to equal, (piite impossilile in many ways 
for anyone to stirpa.ss, 1)ul in the ciureut debates of this 
body, s]x-akin,y- often ujjon the s])ur of the moment, he was 
one of the most resourceful, reach', incisi\e, and dansjerons 
of antagonists. 

No one is at liberty to doubt, from his incursions into the 
fields of literature and ])oetry in the intervals of exacting 
jniljlic work, that had he dexoted his life to literature he 
would have achieved a world-wide renown. 

With all his brillianc> of thought and speech it ought, 
in justice to liis memory, to be .said of him — and in the last 
analy.sis no greater prai.se can be bestowed upon anyone 
in public life — tiiat he was es.sentially a faitlifnl and labori- 
ous public .servant. He carried witli him always a sense 
of responsibility, and in the great ma.ss of duties, large and 
small, he worked with nnrtinitting assiduity. He was 
always prompt in his attendance npcju the cojnmittees, 
ready to report with rare intelligence upon the subjects 
committed to his charge. He ga\e attention to the bills 
upon the Calendar from day to day, and the records of the 



J oil II James Ingalls. 39 

Senate cUirin,^- the years of his service will bear abundant 
testimony that he was neither complaisant nor inattentive 
in discharging- the varied dnties of his great office. 

His interest in the growth, development, and adornment 
of this capital was intense, and if it shall reach the stand- 
ard which he conceived and toward which he toiled the 
people of this Republic may be well content. 

I doubt if there ever was a better presiding officer. 
Certainly I have not seen one. 

He seemed to me always to have great power in reser\-e, 
and when he had delivered a speech here, without apparent 
effort, enchaining the attention of the great audience and 
eagerly read throughout the country, I was always im- 
pres.sed with his power to eclipse it without difficulty, 
.should exigency demand it. 

With all his power of sarcasm, invective, and vigor in 
debate he was, in his daily intercourse, in his friendship, 
and in the quiet atmosphere of his home, genial and 
charming. 

In one of those strange periods of popular aljerration 
which come and go Kansas extinguished the brilliant 
X\(A\1 in this Chamber which had made and kci)t her 
name shining in the list of American Commonwealths, 
and put another in his place. Next to the devoted wife 
wdio presided over his home and the children who adorned 
it, he loved Kan.sas and her people. That tliL- withdrawal 
of her favor stung and wounded his proud spirit no one 
may doubt, but he went his way into retirement and gave 
no sign of pain. Doubtless he thought, with Chatfield: 

Popularity is likf lilt- 1_)rit;htiiess of a f.-illing .star, the fltx-linK splendor 
of a rainbow, the bubble that is sure to burst by its very inflation. 



40 Acceptance of Statue of 

Kansas lias come into her own aj^ain, and tlu- Ixgali.S 
wlioni slic discarded is a.s^ain tlu- Ixcai.i.s wlioni she 
idolizes. 

And now, ^Ir. President, the <^reat Connnonwealth of 
his adoption and affection by solemn act places in Statn- 
ary Hall, to stand f()re\-er nnder the Dome of the Capitol 
in which his lony and brilliant service for her and for 
the conntr\- Ijroni^ht imperishable glor\- to her name, the 
chiseled form and featnres of John Jamks Ixgalls. She 
docs not by so doing add to his fame. What he did and 
said here in her service fixed for all time liis fame as a 
scholar, lawyer, orator, .statesman; bnt Kan.sas has done 
him jnstice, and Kansas in doing him justice has done 
honor to herself. Kan.sas is a great Commonwealth. No 
one may safely .set limit upon the possibilities of her 
future. She iias .sent and will send here other statesmen 
of ability, elocjuence, and fidelity; bnt it is no di.sparage- 
ment to an\' one of them to say that among them all 
there will not come again from Kan.sas into this Chamber 
another John Jamk.s Incai.i.s. 

I am grateful for the opportunity which the great 
Commonwealth of Kansas has afforded me to vote for 
the acceptance of this her first contribution to Statuary 
Hall. I wish, Air. President, I might have more fitly 
sjjoken of him and his career. 



JoJni James l/igalls. ' 41 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 

i\Ir. President: Rising to take a .small part, and, as I 
regret to say, a hasty and imperfect part in the interesting 
ceremonies which are about to be concUided, there conies 
to ni}- mind the vivid expression of a distinguished Ameri- 
can statesman and Senator, Voorhees, who was once our 
honored colleague upon this floor. He said of our country 
that "we live in a land of brief antiquity." But yesterday, 
as it seems to many who are yet occupants of seats in this 
Chamber, there sat the form of John E. Kenna, of West 
Virginia [indicating], and there sat John J. Ixc;all.s, of 
Kansas [indicating]. Already, while we are yet sharing 
together the labors of this Chamber, they have been trans- 
lated as permanent Senators in that republic of reminis- 
cence of our national history which we call Statuary Hall. 

It knew well the Senator whose figure in white and 
marble will there stand while the generations come and go. 
I knew him in his home, which was the shrine of his 
affections, and shared its hospitality, and there he was 
most honored and beloved. A lovable man who loved 
him said: "His wife and his children were the lights of 
his life and he was theirs." I knew him as chairman of 
the Committee on the District of Columbia, of which for 
years I was a member. I saw his patience in counsel. I 
witnessed the care with which he administered his office, 
and I never found him otherwise than what his high duties 
called for him to l)e. 



42 Accept a )Hc of Slatuc of 

I knew liiiii, like all his colleag-ues, as presidinjj officer 
of this Chamber. In that character he showed himself to 
be one of the most accomi)lished parliamentarians who ever 
presided o\-er a deliberative body in onr conntry. He was 
learned; he was alert; he was prompt; he was decisive; 
and to the \arions \irtnes in the discharge of those dnties 
there is jnsth' added the crown that he was fair. I knew 
him amidst the tnmnlts of debates in this Chamber; and 
tho.se who knew him realize that Kansas has been jnst in 
her selection of him as the one whose statue should stand 
fore\-er in our Ca])itol. 

The President and \'ice-Presi(lent of the United States, 
and the Members of the Senate and the House of Repre- 
sentalive.s, are the only ])nblic officials in the United States 
who are cho.sen, directly or indirectly, by its people. .Ml 
of our \-ast corps of jMiblic .servants, whether of the Arm\-, 
the Xavy, the judiciary, or the E.xecutive Departments are 
chcsen by the Executive head of our Government or his 
.subordinates, and the Members of the House of Repre- 
sentatives are the .sole participants in public power who 
are chosen by <lirect vote of the people. It is b\- such a 
sy.stem that the .American jjeople have established and .so 
far have successfully conducted the Republic, their voice 
percolating through their cho.sen agent.s. In this bodv, 
where two Senators represent each State without regard to 
the diversities of population, of wealth, of area, of educa- 
tion or of race, without indeed regard to anything .save 
that it is that composite entity which we call a State, we 
l)ehold a sjxcies of re]>re.sentative government which was 
without precedent in ancient da_\s,. and .seems to have 



John Janus I myalls. 43 

furnished a model which has attracted tlie admiration and 
imitation of other peoples, and is likely to be copied in 
the political transformations which await the world. 

Our own Constitution seems to have furnished the ideal 
of the Statuary Hall in this Capitol, and the Senate seems 
to have supplied the model, for there are to stand tlie 
images of two citizens of each State, and the State itself 
is to choose them. 

The act which pro\-ided for Statuary Hall was enacted 
during the civil war, and the Hon. Justin S. Morrill, of 
Vermont, was its author. Though the smoke of battle 
then beclouded the heavens and the thunder of contending 
armies was borne iipon everv breeze, a coming time he saw 
in the vision of his dreams when all the people of this 
nation would dwell in amity again under the old rooftree, 
and he anticipated it in his forecast of a representative hall 
that would contain the statues of their chosen leaders. 
The President of the United States was authorized to 
in\-ite and has invited all the States to furnish them. 
They must be of men who ha\-e finished their earthh' 
course, and if the (xreek were apt in the exclamation "call 
no man happy until he dies," surely also was the drafts- 
man apt in conferring such honors upon those who have 
passed be\-ond the shadows of life's struggles, and bevond 
the travail of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. 

The statues nuist be "of marble or bronze." Thus was 
manifested the intent to assure to them whatewr of proof 
against the "cankering tooth of time" that man mav 
imjjart to his fabrications. They nnist be of citizens of 
the State that furnished them who were "illustrious for 



44 ' Acceptance of Statue of 

llitir historic renown or for distin<^nished civic or niilitars' 
services," and they must be snch as each State " may deem 
to be worthy of snch national commemoration.'' 

The vState of Kansas, the thirt}-fifth of the American 
Commonwealths to enter the Federal Union, has fnrnished 
the statne in white marble of her favored and honored son, 
Joiix Jamks Inc.ai.i.s. It has been erected in Statuary 
Hall, and there will abide until time shall make those 
chanj^es which we can not now e\en take into our 
inuiiiination. 

That .State was a child of revolution. It was admitted 
to the rnidu Jannar\- 29, 1S61, while the sections were 
forming- in the ranks of a jirolonged and deadh- strife. 

Jdiix Jami'.s lNrr.\LUS was also a child of revolution. 
A striplin.y^ youth of Ma.ssachu.setts, he had entered Kan.sas 
in 185S when that Territory was fillinj^ up with the com- 
Imstible elements of internecine intestine war over the 
slaverv cjuestion. That abnormal question was under con- 
ditions that had ne\'er before arrested the progress of our 
race and it lay athwart the march of the American Republic. 
It presented is.sues which our people had never before dealt 
with and which it was a puzzle to them how to deal with. 
It is not my ])urpo.se to refer to it further than to relate 
the fact in this discussion, when now, happily, it has passed 
away. 

It is not expected of me, nor is it my part, to eulogize 
the whole of the political career of Senator Ingalus. It 
was in large measure antipodal to what I believe in and 
to what I stood for. 



Jolni Ja»ics Iiigalls. 45 

But this does not withhold from nie an expression of 
sincere respect and honor for many traits that he exhibited. 
He stood erect in the field of his conflicts. He was no 
crawling or creeping thing. He spoke with no forked 
tongue. He conld always be found. If he ga\-e blows 
he flinched not from receiving them. ^lany of his utter- 
ances were offensive to many, and offensive to me, and 
appeared to me to be extravagant, but men who wrestle 
in the fierce conflicts of life are not men to feel vindictive- 
ness, and I feel none to him. Such facts, I hope, may 
never blind me to just and honorable recognition of courage, 
of skill, of genius, of patriotic aspiration and .service b}- 
whomsoever displayed; and I recognize the fact that all 
of these virtues were conspicuoush' and notably displa}-ed 
in him. 

I believe that from his }'outh upward he followed the 
thread of the stream of his convictions, and though the 
waters flashed and foamed around him, and sometimes 
seemed to tho.se who okserved him to overrun the bank, 
who is there who has struggled in gi'eat conflicts and dealt 
with multitudes moved by great passions who has not 
himself been subject to .some such animad\-ersion as might 
be made of him? 

Senator Ing.\LLS was a high-strung man. He po.sses.sed 
the nervous, romantic, poetic, and artistic temperament. 
He was inten.se, and he was highlv artistic. He was a 
student of words and learned to use them in all the delicate 
and deep-dyed hues of expression. There was a vein of 
rich (Tcnius in him. Men of this order carr>' their thoughts 



46 Acceptance of Stalttc of 

to the tiirllK-sl limit. Instinctively they plan for effect, 
and, like the j^eueral in battle, they plan for instant effect. 
If in otir own .sedate and calm moments they seem in their 
expressions to be over\vron<jht, let ns not judge, lest we 
onrsch'cs be judj^cd, for it is for ns to remember that it 
was not in calm and sedate times nor in calm and sedate 
moments that these words were uttered, but under the 
stirring and momentous s])ell of great events and of moving 
passions. 

The reasons for the choice of Senator IxGALLS for the 
Statuary Hall are not occult. Me was the incarnation of 
the thought and the spirit of the Kan.sas ])eople. He was 
also the incarnalit)n of the thought and spirit of the great 
niajoritv of the American jK-oplc (jf his time. Hut he was 
a Kan.san, one of the people, in exx-ry fiber of his being. 
He was no light conformist to the creeds that they pro- 
fessed and which he professed. He believed in them and 
they po.s-ses.sed him. It was through these creeds and in 
them that he became a leader of the jieople, and it was in 
defending them that he ro.se justh' to public honors and 
won justly jjublic distinction and fa\or. 

We find many men who are able with the pen and w-ho 
make great writers. We find many men who are able in 
speech and who make great speakers. I believe our country 
has more of both classes of this order of men than any 
nation that ever existed, and the fact is attributable to the 
freedom of discussion that has existed from the beginning 
of the Republic and the further fact that all questions here 
which touch the interest of the public weal are quickly 
tran.slated to the forum of political agitation, and find there 



/('//// /tt///(S Ii/oal/s. 47 

tlieir ultimate solution at the polls. But we do not find 
uian\' lueu, Air. President, who are equally capable with 
tongue and pen. Thomas Jefferson wrote ably essays, 
history, scientific or philosophic commentary, but he never 
made a speech. It was said of Goldsmith that he " wrote 
like an angel, but talked like poor Poll." 

John James Ixgalls, of Kansas, had the double faculty. 
He could write neatly, path", pithily, and to the point. He 
aimed directly at his mark. When he spoke or when he 
wrote he engaged attention from the start bj- some virile 
and pertinent utterance, and kept it to the end by compact, 
salient, and thought-laden expression. Always aggressive, 
he had the instinct attributed to Rnfus Choate of aiming 
at the jugular vein of his adversary. Had he given his 
life, as did Air. Greeley, to the editor's desk he would ha\-e 
been one of the most famous editors of his time. As an 
orator and as a debater here he stood easily in the front 
rank, and he vaulted to that rank from the time that he 
entered public life. Xo doubt his habit of writing made 
him the accurate man and clarified his expression; but he 
did not as was said of Edmund Burke, speak es.says. He 
spoke speeches. They were speeches addres.sed to that 
audience which was before him, to that topic which he was 
discussing, and framed according to an artistic recognition 
of the situation with which he dealt and of the best methods 
of dealing with it. 

While I sa^■ this, it is also true that many of his addresses 
glisten with gems of philosophic thought, which are per- 
manent contributions to the literature and wisdom of man, 
but as a rule it was "the pending question" that he dealt 



48 Acceptance of Statue of 

with and lo whicli Ik- lirouj^ht llic fniits of his genius and 
of his reflection. 

The Roman said: "Tenipora nuitantur, et nos nuitamnr 
in illis." "Times chanj^e and we change with them." 
Some apply the sentence as a .saturnine fling at changes 
of human opinion. It is in realit\' a simple statement of 
scientific and historic fact known to the meaning of our 
great ]M)el and delinoator of mankind, who says: 

\Vc know what we are, but know not what we may be. 

Nothing is unchangeable but change. That goes on 
with ceaseless pace, with every beat of the heart, with 
every tick of lime, having for its goal, as the hope within 
our breast aspires, " that one far-off di\ine event to which 
the whole creation moves." It would be a paradox if man, 
changing his form, his attitude, his relations, his environ- 
ments, his feelings, and his thoughts during every instant 
of his being, coidd not properly change his convictions 
and his actions. Were a decree issued against such change 
it would freeze and annihilate ever}- germ of growth, of 
progress, and of improvement, and the world would be 
a stagnant lump of inanity-. 

There is but one thing to which man can be ancestral, 
and that thing is his connection of duty as God hath given 
it to him to see that duty, and the enlightened mind will 
always be just to the honest character that follows that 
standard, no matter into what difference or antagonism it 
leads. 

While I render sincere tribute to Senator Ing.^li.s in 
matters where he and I were as far apart as the poles, it is 
a comfort to my feelings and it kindles the grateful senses 



Ji>ltii Janus Ingalh. 49 

of my heart to recall that at a crisis when, as we of the 
South thought, our dearest rights were menaced and ci\il 
war was foreboded to our people he acted manfully to a\-ert 
that crisis by an independent course of conduct which 
bespoke stern stuff in his composition and a broad patriot- 
ism in his spirit. I also recall with similar sentiments 
the fact that two of his most impressive and memorable 
orations were delivered in this Chamber on the li^•es and 
characters of two eminent vSouthern statesmen who were 
opposed to him on great conjunctures and for many )'ears. 

I lay at his feet to-day the evergreen of gratitude, and he 
who has it not for a brave and generous deed has nothing. 

Mr. President, I have regretted that the exactions of our 
occupations here have not permitted me to emulate the 
chaste and eloquent address of the Senator from Kansas, who 
presented the statue, and of my predecessors on receiving it. 

I shall bring my remarks to a close, and, in doing so, 

permit me to quote a few sentences of the distinguished 

man to wdiom we pa}- honor: 

There can be no step backward. 

It is idle to quarrel with the inevitable. 

What has been done we can not undo. 

Statesmanship has no concern with the past except to learn its lessons. 

Recrimination and hostile criticism are worse than useless. 

This is the concrete essence of wisdom. 

Again he says: 

Society is reenforced from the bottom and not from the top. Families 
die out. Fortunes are dispersed. The recruits come from the farm, the 
forge, and the workshop, and not from the club and the palace. Those 
who will control the destinies of the twentieth century are now boys 
wearing homespun and "hand-me-downs," and not the gilded youth, 
clad in purple and fine linen and faring suni])tuously every da\'. 

17102—05 4 



5Q Acceptance of Statue of 

IxcAi.i.S was liiiiisclf a notable illustration of the \-ounq; 
and aspiriiifr Ainerican, who, filled with the s])irit of 
adventure and hi<rli and)ition, rises to the front of undcr- 
takinj^s and soon achieves his way to the front of acconi- 
jilishment. Some, seeino^ the immensity of wealth and 
])ower, ,q;row depressed as to the future. Such an examjile 
as his is the kind of e.\ani])le to keep forever before the 
youths of our eouutry, and if the sileiU li]is of the iuuitre 
which now stands in the Ca])itol shall bear fruitfully 
this messa<,'-e from vStatuary Hall to the days that are to 
come, they will blossom in deeds which are wortln- of 
our pre\-ious history and may dissij\ate any cloud that 
may .slather on our horizon. Let it ,<^o forth to all the 
bra\-e youth of .America and stir their breasts to hit^'h 
endeavor. In America let us not for<(et that every day 
is "opportunity," and the mettled horse for him who 
can ride him stands here alwa\s saddled at the door. 

The rKHSlDKNT j)ro tempore. The question is on the 
adoption of the concurrent resolution submitted by the 
Senator from Kan.sas [Mr. Lono;]. 

The concurrent resolution was unanimously agreed to. 



Joliii Janus Iiioaih. 51 



Proceedings in the House of Representatives 

December 16, 1904. 

Air. Curtis. Mr. vSpeakcr, I offer the following reso- 
lution, and a.sk unanimous consent for its present con- 
sideration. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and accept- 
ance from the State of Kansas of the statue of John J. lNG.\l,r,S, 
erected in tlie old Hall of the House of Representatives, lie made tlie 
special order fur Saturday, January 21, 191 15, at 3.30 o'clock p. m. 

The Speaker. Is there objection to the ])resent con- 
sideration? [After a jmuse.] The Chair hears none. 
The question was taken, and the resulution was agreed to. 

January 21, 1905. 

Mr. Curtis. Mr. Speaker, I call up the resolution 
which I send to the Clerk's desk, and ask unaniuious 
consent to proceed with its consideration at this time, 
instead of waiting until 3 o'clock. 

The Speaker. The gentleman calls up a resolution 
which will be reported b\- the Clerk, and asks unanimous 
con.sent to proceed under it at this time. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the exercises appropriate- to the reception and accept- 
ance from the State of Kansas of the statue of John J. Incai.i.s, 
erected in the old Hall of the House of Representatives, be made the 
special order ftjr Saturday, January 21, 1905, at 3.30 ]). m. 



52 ^Acceptance of Statue of 

Tlic Si'KAKKK. Is tlicre objection? 

There was no objection. 

Accordingly, Uk House ]iroceeded with the exercises 
appropriate to the reception and acceptance from tlie State 
of Kansas of the statue of Joiix J. Ixgai,ls, erected in the 
old Hall of the House of Representatives, with Mr. 
Reeder in the chair as Speaker pro tempore. 

Mr. CiRTi.s. Mr. Speaker, I a.sk for the reading of the 
letter which I .send to the Clerk's desk. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

St.\tk ui-' Ka.ns.vs, Kxkcutive Dkpartment, 

7'opfka, Jainiaiy //, /905. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives, U'astiington, D. C: 

Aiiionj; llif many disliiigui.shed men whose fame lias honored the State 
of KaiKsa.s the life of no one has added greater luster to its history than 
the life of John J.\mk.S Inc.ai,i„s. His name is indelibly in.scribed uixin 
the most brilliant paj;es of the .State's history. Grateful for his eminent 
services and proud of his j^reat achievements, the State legislature two 
years ago made an appropriation for the purchase of a suitable statue a.s 
a tribute to his memory, to be reared in Statuary Hall, where Congress 
conferred upon his people the rare honor of providing a place for it. This 
beautiful and precious piece of statuary is now ready for fonual acceptance 
by the Covernment, and in behalf of the legislature of Kan.sas and of the 
people they and I represent, I have the great honor and j)leasure of jjre- 
senting it to the people of the rnite<l States and their representatives in 
Congress as.sembled. 

[SEAi,.] H. \V. HocH, Coiernor. 



/ohil Janus Iiigalls. 53 



Address of Mr. Curtis, of Kansas 

Mr. Speaker: rJ\' an act passed in 1864, now fort)- years 
ago, the Congress dedicated a portion of this great btiikling 
to the commemoration by all the .States of the Union of 
their illustrions dead. It was given to those States to 
choose for themselves the sons whom each one wonld 
honor. The chosen names must be so few that time and 
careftil choice shonld be absolntely necessary. The honor 
done is very great, for this American \'alhalla is not the 
hall of registry- for an indiscriminate fame. He whose 
statue stands here for the men and women and little 
children of generations )'et unborn to gaze upon may have 
been a uian distinguished in a national sense, and be 
honored elsewhere, and also as one who.se deeds were great 
in the widest field that is offered to the work of Inunan 
brain and heart and hand. 

But he who stands in bronze or uiarble here must also 
have had an additional and a rarer distinction, for he must 
have been honored, respected, perhaps even deeply loved, 
bv the people of his own State; by tho.se who in his 
time and their time knew him intimately and well with 
all his sins upon him. It is an honor for which any 
American, could he but know, might strive and starve his 
whole life through, careless utterly of any other reward 
the sum of his life might l)ring. For here at last is 
parted the wheat from the chaff and the dro.ss from the 



54 .larptainr of Statue of 

fine gold, and here stand in their last arrav those whose 
names luue snr\i\ed the winnowinij of the gods. 

The States that confer such final honors npon their 
sons are capable of bestowing gifts of the supremest value. 
For each one that is now a star in the galaxy tlie most 
brilliant the genius of free men has e\-er created was in 
its da\- wrested from its prime\al owners; carved out of 
woods and swamp and ])rairie; clad in the swaddling 
clothes of a written constitution by toil-worn hands; and 
.set at last amid its shining si.sters by the courage, the 
unrequited toils, and iIr- iinknown pri\ations of those 
.\mericans who li\ed not for ih^mselves alone, and who 
died unsung amid their mighty tasks. Their leadens — 
for there are always leaders — were centurions, captains of 
their hundreds, who.se heads and hearts and dearest hopes 
went to the doing of the immediate tasks they saw around 
and before them. These men ne\ er dreamed of gratitude, 
never worked for a reward, never thought of the recoui- 
pen.se of fame. Peace to their ashes where they sleep on 
green hillsides in unknown gra\'es in e\"er\- State. l"n- 
heralded they came and unrewarded they have pa.s.sed 
away, li\ing now in tla- blood and courage of their .sons 
and daughters, spent in fields that lie .still nearer to the 
setting sun. 

Such a Ct)nnnon wealth was earK Kan.sas, with such 
beginnings and such men, but .set apart and made 
remarkable by still other characteristics. Among all the 
States .she was, e\en jilnsicalK', the pioneer of a class, 
a peculiar kind hitherto unknown to American enter- 
prise. For she was of the ])laius, and her Ijoundaries as 
a Territory placed her on the crest of that \ast e.\pan.-e 



John James Iiio;a//s. 55 

where a thousand swellinof hills climbed liit^her and 
higher against the western sky until they reached, 4,000 
feet above sea le\'el, the uriglitA' escarpments of the 
Rocky ^Mountains. Tradition said that such a land was 
never intended for the residence of white men. There 
were no forests to cut away. The streams drawled idly 
over leagues of sand. The winds came hot and strong 
from the endle.ss reaches of the Great Staked Plains. 0\'er 
the gra.ssy leagues wandered countless hosts of shaggy 
beasts, put there by the beneficence of the red man's 
Providence for the sustenance of these his children. 
For this silent and grassy realm the white man's utter- 
most eastern boundary was the ashen river that had 
been traversed b)- all the pioneers of a still older time, 
but on whose western bank the\- had never found a 
resting place, and bevond which there had never lin- 
gered a dream of that empire which "westward takes 
its way." 

Such was the .State of Kansas only fift\' years ago. 
The white men who came to her then came as those 
do who l;mild their hopes and guide their lives ujxm 
something that lies deeper than human prescience, and 
who are led to their destin\- or their doom bv the will 
of God. 

So the beginnings of all there is to-day in a region 
apparenth' foreordained, if ordained at all, to be the nurse 
of human fatuity and tisele.ss toil, came in 1858, now about 
fort\'-se\'en \ears ago, a young man whose name was John 
James Inoalls. He was 25 years old, unattached, a col- 
lege graduate, a lawyer b}- preparation and intention, culti- 
tivated, acute, highly intelligent, and withal young, slender, 



56 Acceptance of Statue of 

and personally attractive. He was an adventurer in a field 
where it would seem that every item of the situation was 
a.fjainst the possibility of final success for such as he. The 
\illajje of Lawrence, founded by his countrymen, had not 
then entered upon its career as the "historic city" further 
than that it was already- the center of the' free-state thou.a^ht 
and strutjijle, and that its citizens were even then doint;^ 
those things that drew upon them the flame and slaughter 
that came a few years later. 

Atchison, Ixg.\LLS'.S later home, was a small town l)ehind 
a steamboat landing in the ^Missouri. Only three years 
before had been dri\-cn on the bare and sterile hill above 
the Kaw the stakes that marked the outlines of the town 
that was later to become the Kansas capital. And beyond 
it as far to the unknown southwest as the pioneer hopes 
extended, there was not a single upland farm, while less 
than a hundred miles to the westward still wandered the 
shaggy l^rown herds whose empire all the land had been 
from time immemorial. 

Where was there here a scholar's career or a statesman's 
field ? Yet it all came to this young man in the space of 
the few years that followed. The young man with his 
inherited culture, his refined and educated tastes, stood 
apparently unarmed and alone amid incongruous surround- 
ings. Vet the first thing he did was to acquire a love for 
his adopted mother, and to become inspired by the far 
horizon. He had a keen delight in freshness of the 
untainted air, in the boundlessness of the view, in the 
azure of the arching dome, in the length and breadth 
of the magnificent expanse. That this was true became 



Joint Jaitus Ino'alls. 57 

e\-ident a little later in Ixgalls's life, when on the printed 
page he recalled the da}-.s of Regis Loisel and drew with 
a poet's hand the surroundings of his daily life under the 
familiar term of " Blue Grass." 

If I have said that this young New Englander stood 
in early Kansas unarmed and alone amid incongruous 
surroundings, I beg to niodif)- the statement. IxG.\LLvS 
was always armed. Xo man ever encountered him 
unready, and no antagonist ever retired from the arena 
of combat with him unwounded and victorious. It was 
the first leading quality of him that was noted b\- his 
fellow-nien as the\- successively came in contact with him 
in those wars of words and ideas that in a free countr\- 
finally fi.\ the beliefs and principles of mankind. It was 
as well the quality oftenest misunderstood, oftenest mi.s- 
construed into a mere power of invective, almost diabol- 
ical in its scope, and that attacked any and all men, 
everywhere. Those who knew Ixgall.s longest will 
probabl)- all agree that no honesth- mistaken man e\-er 
felt the sting of that smooth and courteous in\-ective. It 
was, on the other hand, the weapon with which a fight- 
ing man in a fighting age, in the seething whirlpool 
of formative politics, must win his way. Ixg.vlls and 
his antagonist in the arena must alwavs have reminded 
the onlopker of the scene at Coilantogle ford as painted 
b)- the greate.st romantic no\-elist who ever lived. 

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dim, 
That on the field his targe he threw, 
Whose brazen studs and tough buUhide 
Had death so often dashed aside. 
For, trained abroad his arms to wield, 
Fit?. James's blade was sword and shield. 



58 Acceptance of Statue of 

Tliis doiniiiant trait of the luau Ingalls, this power of 
the skillful swordsman always ready, was a thinj;^ durin<f 
his whole life iiiisuiiderstood. It was really the result of 
the exercise of one of the rarest powers of the human 
mind — the ])()wer of t|uick perception and instant under- 
standing. His ability to quickly see, to know, and to 
understand was almost intniti\'e, and it was sustained by a 
command of his mother tonj^ue and knowledge of words 
and their uses that was marvelous. He was strangelv 
indifferent to the beckonings of the hand that leads the 
sons of genius into the paths of literature; he wrote but 
desultorily and at intervals, yet it can be easily demon- 
strated that he was perhaps the greatest descripli\e writer 
of the brief day in which he wrote at all. The poem that 
smells of the midnight oil, the turgid essay that bears wit- 
ness to the sweat of the brow, were not for him. But in 
all he did <if literature he struck as sharply with his ])en as 
with that rapier of speech that was always at his side. In 
a literature that is small in \()lume and jiriceless in charac- 
ter he carved cameos by toucii, and they were instantly 
done and cast aside, gems that anyone might have who 
cho.se to carry them away. 

There were thousands who misunderstood the rare intel- 
lectuality I have attempted to describe, for it is in the 
course of nature that a man like this is largeU' i.solated 
from his fellows by the nature of his case. Yet at a pecul- 
iar crisis in the politics of Kan.sas they were the qualities 
which brought him forward and i)laced him in the Senate. 
Hut he was not even then new and imknown. He had 
entered politics at the beginning of his career. He was a 
member of the con\ention at Wvandotle that drafted the 



Joliii JiDiics Iiioalls. 59 

present constitution of Kansas. His work is in e\-er\- para- 
graph, for he is said to ha\-c had as his special task the 
molding into clear and vigorous Knglish the pro\-isions of 
that organic law. It was he who chose the characteristic 
motto of the shield, "Ad astra per aspera," and this in three 
words acknowledged the difTicnlties of the beginnings and - 
foretold the glories which were so soon to come. 

Later Ingalls was secretary of the Territorial council, 
and still a little later was a member of the State senate. 
These were the educational beginnings of his political 
career. It was the day of small things for all that lay west 
of the Missouri. In the town of Atchison he made himself 
a home and lived as other men, intent upon the affairs of 
daily life, cherishing the home he had made and the familv 
that had grown about his knees, with an even o-reater 
devotion than he ever showed to any of the interests which 
later clustered about a life that was lived in the public e\e. 

The story of that public life is still remembered in man\- 
of its details. Mr. Ingalls passed eighteen vears in the 
Ihiited States vSenate. They were years during which the 
Congress in both its branches was filled with stalwart men. 
It was the reconstructive period that followed the greatest 
war of modern times. In it lived Blaine and Garfield and 
Conkling and Butler and Logan. They were the davs of 
Grant, and, in their beginnings, Charles Sumner died. The 
rugged veterans of their country's battles, the skilled sol- 
diers who had commanded her armies in the field, came 
again to these Halls to make her laws. There were 
episodes in those days that will never occur again; there 
were scenes no pen has yet described. 



6o Acceptance of Statue of 

II \va^ durinpr these years that Ixc.ai.i.s achieved for his 
State a fame that has not yet orowii dim. The man from 
the rim of the desert gave the world for the first time to 
understand that it miglit hereafter expect from that far 
conntry lejjends other than lliose of calamit\' and woe. 
He was the first to .ijive adeqnate expression to llie new 
ideas and ideas of a threat State whose nnr.sing mother had 
been sorrow, whose atmosphere had been fnll of strife, the 
very .stones of whose fonndations had been laid in blood. 
The remarkable story of all that preceded Ixg.\lls is not 
for nie to tell here. Largely he created the changed .senti- 
ment that since his day has been attached to Kansas- and 
to the men and women nnrtnre<l on her soil. 

Finally there came the ri.se of that which for want of a 
better name has come to be known as the western agrarian 
moxement. It was a ])olitical movement not confined to 
Kansas, bnl there it had its highest rise, and later its ])ro- 
fonndest fall. Xo one has ever described it accnrateh', for 
its followers and adherents ha\e themselves almost ceased 
to be interested in the story of that which they at one time 
seem to have belie\ed was a doctrine that involved .the 
salvation of all that Americans hold dear. 

At the height of this new doctrine Mr. Ing.-vlls's third 
term in the Senate came to an end, and he was defeated for 
reelection. It was not a personal defeat, and he was bnt 
the snbject of an animosity that was really directed against 
that which he was imagined to strongly represent. Neither 
the Cavalier nor the Roinidhead in their day pansed to 
analyze the personal characteristics each of the other. In 



Joliii James I)igalls. 6i 

Kansas the party which was \-ictorions at the polls wanted 
their fitting Senator, and got him. 

Asrrarianism has had its da\'. The State which gave 
Blaine 180,000 votes in 18S4 gave in its slow recovery 
125,000 majority for Roosevelt in 1904. With the slow 
change back to the Angnstan age, and the spirit of the 
imperial days that made Kansas all she is, came a recrndes- 
cence of admiration for and sympathy with her greatest 
man. He was not there to explain his own brilliant life 
and advocate his canse. The hearts of the men of Kan.sas 
tnrned back to him alone. By an act of their legi.s-lature 
they have placed his counterfeit presentment here as their 
tribute to his memory. Mr. Ingalls in his lifetime could 
have asked nothing more, and the love of his fellow- 
citizens could give nothing less. Yet this monument is 
for the the world at large. No Kansas schoolboy will ever 
need it to remind him who that man was, or what he did, 
who was named "Ji.mx Jamhs Ixgalls." 



62 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri 

Mr. vSi'I'.aki'.k: In the \'er\- licart of tlie continent, lying- 
side by side, are tlie magnificent Commonwealths of 
^lissomi and Kansas. Neither northern nor .southern, 
neither eastern nor western, they are the great central 
States of the Tnion. .\ circle with Kan.sas Citv for its 
center and with a radins of 300 miles wonld contain 
more land of the richest (jualitN' than an\' other circle of 
equal size on the habitable globe. W'itliin its circum- 
ference can be produced all the necessaries and most of 
the lu.xnries of human life. Cultivated as .scientificallv 
as Belgimn or Holland, Missouri and Kan.sas could sustain 
a population e(|ual to that of the entire ReiJublic at the 
present time. 

It is, however, not in their ])henomenal wealth of 
material resources and possibilities that tlie.se two States 
are most la\-ishly blessed, but in their superb citizen.ship. 

In tin- earh' day Mis.sourians and Kansans, inheriting 
from the fatliers a bitter, irrepressible, historic quarrel for 
which they were in no way responsible, were at daggers' 
points, and led "the strenuous life." Now, acting on the 
noble philo.sophy that "Peace hath her victories no less 
renowned than war," they are illustrating the virtues of 
"the .simple life." Love, which laughs at locksmiths, has 
broken down the lines of demarcation. ^Missouri boys 
have married Kan.sas girls, and Kan.sas bovs have married 



Jolui Jaiiu's Iiii^alls. 63 

Missouri i,nrls, until we are all i^ettiug to be kinfolks. 
The blend is the hi.y;liest type of American manhdod 
and womanhood. Missourians and Kansans are ri\als now 
only in patriotism — in intellectual, moral, religious, and 
material achievement. They are leaders in the nation's 
triumphal progress, the trtie story of which is more mar- 
velous than any tale out of the Arabian Nights. 

It was a matter of ineffable pride with the people west 
of the Mississippi that for many years the two most 
brilliant speakers in the Senate of the United States lived 
on the sunset side of the great river — George Graham 
Vest, of Missouri, and John James Ingalls, of Kansas. 

They were the opposites of each other in almost ever>-- 
thing — in nati\"ity, in lineage, in methods of thought, in 
style of oratory, and in politics. In'GALLS boasted that 
he was a " New England Brahmin," whate\-er that nuu' 
be. Vest was a flue sample of the Kentuckian, " caught 
young enough " and transplanted to the rich allu\-ial soil 
of Missouri. 

Both had classical educations, In'G.\LLS being an alum- 
nus of Williams College, ]\Iassachusetts, and \'est of 
Center College, Kentucky — two famous .seats of learning. 
Both delighted in the wisdom of the ancients and the 
moderns and both reveled in the poets. 

Ingalls was a judge-advocate of Kansas militia for a 
short while ; Vest served on Price's staff a few davs. 

Ing.^LLS's speeches were composed largely of acjua 
fortis, dynamite, and Greek fire; Vest's were a mi.xtiu'e 
of vitriol, sweet oil, rosewater, naphtha, and gun cotton. 



64 Acceptance of Statue of 

Daiitdn's motto was: "L'audacel L'aiidace! Toujours 
I'andacel" I.\(;ai.i.s's \vfa]ion was "Sarcasm! Sarcasm! 
alwaws sarcasm I" In lliat regard he ranks with Tristam 
Hurijes, John Randolpli of Roanoke, Thaddeus Stevens, 
and Tlionias Hrackett Reed. \'est tempered his sarcasm 
willi denial hnmor which cured the wound which he 
had inflicted. 

Incai.i.s ]K>ssessed tlie most copious and most g-orgeoiis 
vocal)nlary of his day, more copious and more gorg-eous, 
indeed, than that of any other American orator except 
Henrx- A. Wise; and was the most jjainstaking precisian 
in tile use of our \crnacidar who has appeared in our 
Congressional life. He burnished his .sentences till the\' 
glittered as a gem. IK- was well (jualified to write an 
unabridged dictionary or a liook on synonyms. Clearly 
he thought with Holland that: 

The temple of art is h\\\\\. i>f words. Painting and sculpture and music 
are l)ut the blazon of its \vin<lo\vs, borrowing all their significance from 
the light, and suggestive only of the temple's uses. 

\'est's diction was rich, but the construction of his ser.- 
tences lacked evidence of the severe and repeated polishings 
to which the caustic Kansan subjected his. If he used as 
nuich art. he eniplo\ed the rarer art of concealing its use. 

Each wielded the scimiter of Saladiu rather than the 
two-handed broadsword of Richard Coeur de Lion. 

IxG.-M.LS was tall, slender, and erect as a grenadier; \'est 
was sliort, rotund, and walked with the pro\erbial student's 
stoop. 

Inc.ai.l.s neglected none of the accessories of pid)lic 
speech. He looked well to the stage .settings. He was a 



J oil II James lug alls. 65 

connoisseur in costumes. Neither Roscoe Conkling nor 
Solomon in all his glory was more splendidly arrayed. He 
followed in letter and in spirit the advice of Polonius to 
Laertes : 

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 

Vest enjoyed the comforts of good raiment, but cared 
nothing for the adornments. 

In the strictest acceptation of the term, Vest was never 
popular in Missouri and Ingalls was never popular in 
Kansas. They had a wondrous hold on the admiration, 
but not on the affections, of their constituents. Thinkino- 
of Vest, a man is proud to call himself a Missourian. 
Thinking of Ingall.s, another is proud to call himself a 
Kansan. Thinking of either of them, one is proud to call 
himself an American. 

Each, through sheer brilliancy of intellect and .soul- 
stirring eloquence, aroused intensest enthusiasm among his 
countrymen. Men listened to Vest and Ingalls just as 
they listen to the thrilling strains of entrancing music, but 
the frenzy of rapture which they engendered is not ade- 
quately expressed by the paltry word "popularity." It was 
delirious delight! 

When either addressed the multitude, he so warmed 
their hearts that — 

They threw their caps 

As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon, 

Shouting their exultation. 

17102—05 5 



66 Acceptance of Statue of 

It is a ciiicer fact — perhaps a regrettable one — tliat lliese 
two celebrated intellectual gladiators never engaged in an 
oratorical pitched battle in the Senate. Such a duel would 
have been worth journe\'ing across the continent to wit- 
ness. Each being in perfect fettle, with a subject of suffi- 
cient historic importance, a contest betwixt them ought 
to have rivaled the Webster-Haj-ne debate in enduring 
interest. 

Kansans arc paying their highest meed of praise to 
IxG.-\LLS by placing his effigy, carved by a cunning hand 
from Parian marble, in Statuary Hall, the great American 
Valhalla, where our choicest worthies do congregate for 
posterity. Missouri would do the same for Vest but for 
the fact that her quota in that illustrious company was 
filled while he still tabernacled in the flesh. 

Ingalus preceded Vest to the grave, and in the Saturday 

Evening Post the brilliant Missourian said, inter alia, 

touching the brilliant Kan.san: 

Of all the public men with whom I have .served John Jamks Inoall.s, 
of Kansas, was the most original and eccentric. He was a living enigma, 
and I could never fully understand his motives and the many-sided phases 
of his character. He had a strong, daring intellect, which defied all limi- 
tations, and was an eloquent, attractive speaker, with a wealth of imagi- 
nation and diction which was inexhaustible. He was at times cynical 
and morose, but was a great word painter and could express the most 
elevated thoughts in language so beautiful .is to fascinate his hearers. 
Above all, he was an iconoclast, and nothing delighted him so much as to 
startle and even shock the staid and dignified Senate by the utterance of 
opinion utterly at variance with the settled belief of many centuries. 
***** * * 

I do not believe that Ingalls was malicious or bad hearted. He was 
an expert in denunciation and could not resist the temptation of exhibit- 
ing his wonderful capability in that regard to the world. He loved 
poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and the beautiful in nature. His 
prose poem on Blue (irass, publi.shed in a Kansa,s magazine before be 
came to the t'nited States Senate, is a marvel in literature, and I am glad 



JoJin James I)ioalls. 67 

to know that a sentence from that essay is to be inscribed on the granite 
bowlder which marks his grave. The sentence is the one in which he 
eulogizes the blue grass sward, beneath which he sleeps, as a "carpet for 
the infant and a blanket for the dead." 

-\ ^ ^ -X- =k -K- * 

Senator iNGALi.S was a master of .satire and invective, being unable to 
resist the temptation to attack an}- of his colleagues, even those of his own 
party, whose record or character presented a vulnerable point for assault. 
On one occasion, when President pro tempore of the Senate, he called 
another .Senator to the chair, and going down on the floor, made a vicious 
personal attack upon Senator Brown, of Georgia, one of the most amiable 
and courteous members of the Senate. The venerable Georgian was sit- 
ting quietly looking over a committee report when a cyclone of satire and 
vituperation burst upon him without the slightest notice of its coming. 
The look of astonishment on the amiable countenance of the victim, as 
verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and epithets filled the air, cau.sed a 
ripple of amusement through the Senate; but the climax was reached 
when Ingalus alluded to a habit .Senator Brown had when speaking of 
gently rubbing one hand over the other, by quoting Hood's lines: 
And then, in the fullness of joy and hope. 
Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap 
In imperceptible water. 

At this critical moment Senator Brown looked down at the offending 
members as if inquiring why they had brought on the volcanic eruption 
which was blazing about him. 

The late Senator George Fri.sbie Hoar, in his autobiog- 
raphy, say.s: 

John James Ingalls was in many respects one of the brightest intel- 
lects I ever knew. He was graduated at Williams in 1S55. One of the 
few tilings, I don't know but I might .say the only thing, for which he 
seemed to have any reverence was the character of Mark Hopkins. He 
was a very conspicuous figure in the debates of the Senate. He had 
an excellent English style, always impressive, often on fit occasions 
rising to great stateliness and beauty. He was for a while President pro 
tempore of the Senate, and was the best presiding officer I have ever 
known there for conducting ordinary business. He maintained in the 
chair always his stately dignity of bearing and speech. The formal 
phrases with which he declared the action of the Senate or stated questions 
for its decision seemed to be a fitting part of .some stately ceremonial. He 
did not care much about the principles of parliamentary law, and had 
never been a very thorough student of the rules. .So his decisions did not 
have the .same authority as those of Mr. Wheeler or Mr. Rdmunds or Mr. 
Hamlin. 



68 Acceptance of Statue of 

I said to him one day: • I lliink you are the best presiding officer I ever 
knew, but I do not think you know much about parliamentary law." To 
which he replied: " I think the sting is bigger than the bee." 

He never lost an opportunity to indulge his gift of caustic wit, no mat- 
ter at whose expense. 

Mr. Eugene \V. Xewmaii, who writes much and felici- 
touslv under the uoui de ])hune of " Savoyard," character- 
izes IXGALLS as "the wizard of the English tongue," and 
saws of him: 

Jt)iiN J.\MES ING.\IJ-S was an extraordinary man. l?y no means the 
ablest, he was perhaps the most brilliant Senator in Congresses conspicu- 
ous for exceptionally brilliant men. He was born in New England, of 
Puritan, not Pilgrim, parentage; of the Endicott, not the Carver, exodus; 
of the vSalem, not the Plymouth, rcjgime. In a sort of mirage of tradition 
the family is traced back to the .Scandinavian kings and peoples who 
grafted Dane and Norman on Briton and Saxon. The name is in Domes- 
day Book. President Garfield and Chief Justice Chase had like origin; 
indeed, the same origin. 

ING.'VLLS rose to be one of the chief figures in American politics and 
success came at his command. He never courted it. He was a poet, and 
never so lonesome as when in a crowd. Lamar was another of that order 
of man. Inoai.ls was not "a man of the people," emphatically not, and 
could not successfully employ the arts of the vulgar demagogue. He 
could just as easily have uiiliftcd the club of Hercules or stricken with the 
hammer of Thor. Himors came to him grudgingly and churli.shly, and 
solely becau.se he was the first intellect and the one genius in the Kansas 
that knew Dudley C. Haskell and Preston B. Plumb. 

These three — Vest, Hoar, and Newman — are competent 
and distinguished witnes.ses. Perhaps the average opinion 
of their evidences would properh- and truh' jxirtray John 
Jamks Ingalus. As Dryden described Halifax .so may 
Ing.\lls l)e described : 

of piercing wit and pregnant thought. 
Endued by nature and by learning taught 
To move assemblies. 

Mr. vSpeaker, Kansas acts wisely in honoring John 

J.VMKS Ingali^, for in honoring him she also honors 

herself. [Loud applause.] 



Jolui James Ingalls. 69 



Address of Mr. Gibson, of Tennessee 

Mr. Speaker: I rise to speak of Ingalls and Kansas. 
Ingalls — Kansas; Kansas — Ingalls! One name sug- 
gests the other. They are as indissolubly connected as 
are the names of Webster and Massachusetts, of Clay 
and Kentucky, or of Calhoun and South Carolina. When 
the name of Ingalls is mentioned in the hearing of a man 
acquainted with his record and the history of his State 
there rises at once in the memory and imagination the 
figure of a man, tall, slender, and straight, looming up 
above the treeless plains of Kansas as conspicuousl)' as 
a lonely and lofty monolith above the sandy plains of 
Egypt; and so, when the name of Kansas is spoken, we 
have a picture of a beautiful country framing the portrait 
of Ingalls, her greatest son. 

KANS.A.S THE CHILD OF CONFLICT 

Kansas has a romantic and peculiar history. She is the 
only one of the new States that was born amid the smoke 
of battle and whose cradle was rocked by the bloody hand 
of civil war. Her plains beheld the preliminary skir- 
mishes of that great conflict which for four years shook 
the continent of North America and appalled the whole 
world by its magnitude and its animosity. The North 
and the South struggled for her po.ssession while .she was 
yet in her infancy. The early immigrants to Kansas came 



JO Acceptance of Statue of 

armed with rifles, rexolvers, and bowie kni\e.s, and llicy 
soon found it necessary to lieal their plowshares into 
swords and their prunint^ liooks into spears and learn war 
instead of peace. I lived through those days, and well do 
I remember how the North sent forth her armed bands to 
hold the laud aud how the South sent forth her fiery 
sons to stay aud tiun back the tide of northern iuva-sion. 
The South conceded Nebraska to the North, l)ut claimed 
Kansas as her own, aud appealed to her loyal sons to vindi- 
cate her claim. 

Sons (if llie Soiilh, awake, arise, 

To fijiht for Kan.sas land, 
With valor gleaming in your eyes 

And ballots in your hand; 
For KanKis to tlie South belongs, 

Nebraska to the North, 
And if we do not right our wrongs 

What is our valor worth? 

.Such was the appeal made by the vSouth, aud he: 
iinpnlsi\e sous euthnsiastically re.spouded. 

THK BATTI.K CRIES OF THK CO.MHATANTS. 

The North answered the challen^-e with equal spirit. 

One and all, hear our call 

Echo through the land! 
Aid us with a willing heart 

And the strong right hand! 

Feed the sjiark the Tilgriins struck 

On okl I'lyniouth Rock! 
To the walcli fires of the free 

Millions glad shall flock! 

11(1. brothers! Come, brothers! 

Hasten all with me! 
We'll sing upon the Kansas plains 

A song of Liberty ! 



Jolt II James Ingalls. 71 

And so witli rival songs, hostile watchwords, and parti- 
san battle cries it was not long before the contending 
hosts began to substitnte bnllets for ballots and the flame 
of fire for the torch of knowledge. Political passion ran 
wild on the plains of Kansas, even before the bnffalo had 
departed or the red Indian had taken down his wigwam; 
and amazing indeed to them mnst have been the spec- 
tacle of white man fighting white man, paleface slaying 
paleface, Americans bntchering Americans, Christians 
massacring Christians — the divine gospel of love metamor- 
phosed by the demon of an nngovernable passion into 
the infernal gospel of hate. 

THE SCENES OF ING.A.LLS'S YOUTH 

Amid snch scenes of horror and distress Ingalls passed 
his young manhood. He beheld the proslavery men in 
death struggle with the free-state men. He witnessed the 
guerrillas, the bushwhackers, and the border ruffians pil- 
laging the land ; he heard his friends denounced as black 
Republicans, abolitionists, and jayhawkers ; the terrors 
wrought by Osawatomie Brown among the proslavery men 
and by Missouri Quantrell among the free-state men filled 
every home with horrible apprehensions and conjured up 
nightmares for every bed. Ingalls saw assaults grow 
into murders and murders grow into massacres; he saw 
house burnings grow into conflagrations, and conflagrations 
sweep away villages, towns, and cities, until his State was 
red with human blood and black with the charred ruins of 
burned homesteads. Murder, robbery, and arson ran 
rioting through the land ; the laws were trampled under 
foot, and chaos and nandemonium had come a<rain. 



7 2 Acceptance of Statue of 

No wonder she was called "Bleeding Kansas!" for verily 

she bled as no other Territory or State of the American 

Union has bled. 

She saw her sons with purple death expire, 
Her sacred domes involved in rolling fire; 
A dreadful series of intestine wars„ 
Inglorious triumphs, and dishonest scars. 

Trained amid these snrroimdings, sympathizing intensely 
with his adopted State in her sufferings, thoroughly indig- 
nant at those who had laid waste her habitations and 
slaughtered her citizens, and longing for the chance to 
speak as her champion and strike as her vindicator and 
avenger, Ing.'\li..s became transfigured into the very per- 
sonification of KaiLsas, and all the emotions, memories, 
spirations, and passions of his State throbbed in his 
heart, seethed in his brain, fla.shed in his eves, and flamed 
in his speech. 

His oratory was characteristic of Kansas in the troublous 
times of his yoimg manhood ; his invective was as terrible 
as the onslaughts of John Brown and his raiders ; his 
irony as bitter as a jayhawker's answer to an appeal for 
mercy ; his imagination as lofty and lurid as the flames 
which filled the skies when Lawrence was burned by 
Quantrell's guerrillas and its citizens massacred ; his sar- 
casm was as cutting and relentless as a bowie knife in 
the hands of a border ruffian ; his indignation as fiery 
and thunderous as a charge of free-state men upon the 
bushwhackers of the border, and his logic as pitiless and 
as irresistible as the cyclones which tore through the 
State from the Rockies to the rivers, annihilating every- 
thing in their pathway. But he always fought in the 



John James Ii/gal/s. 'J2) 

open, sometimes like an Islimaelite, giving no mere}- and 
receiving none; but at all times, and under all circum- 
stances, loved by his State of Kansas and feared by her 
enemies. 

INGALLS IN THE SENATE 

Thus trained, thus educated in the troubled school of 
fratricidal war, thus inspired with the tremendous emotions 
born of the earthquake throes of those awful times, John 
James Ingalls came to the front of the platform of 
public life ; and after serving in the councils of his State 
for a season was, in January, 1873, elected a Senator in 
the Congress of the United States, and for eighteen 
years from the day he took his seat he was one of the 
shining figures in that grand body of good and great men. 

We do not judge a lion by comparison with wolves, 
for the contrast does not so much magnify the lion as 
it portrays the despicable nature of the wolf. To judge 
a lion he must be compared with lions. So to judge 
Ingalls we must not place him with ordinarv men. 
A Senator stands for a million men, and a great Senator 
stands for many Senators. Ingalls was a great Senator — 
great amid such Senators as Bayard, Ben. H. Hill, John 
A. lyOgan, George F. Hoar, Roscoe Conkling, Allen G. 
Thurman, Isham G. Harris, George F. Edmunds, Matt H. 
Carpenter, and John Sherman. 

He was a giant among giants, and of them all none 
more picturesque, none with such a distinctive individu- 
ality, none that rose higher in the sublime atmosphere of 
loftv intellectualitv. And when Ingalls left the Senate 



74 Acceptance of Statue of 

he stepped forth upon a broader and loftier arena and 
became henceforth more than a distinguished son of Kan- 
sas, he became one of the great men of America and of 

the world — 

I 

One of tlie few, the immortal names, 
That were not l)orn to die. 

INGALI.S HIS STATE'.S FAVORITE SON 

Such, then, being tlie history and character of the man; 
such being his inspiration and his devotion; such his 
genius and his fame; such his personification of all that 
was best and brightest, most patriotic, most famous, and 
most characteristic in her history', it was most fitting that 
the State of Kansas should select him as her most illus- 
trious representative and her most distinguished citizen, 
to stand forth in these halls in imperishable marble as 
long as this Capitol shall stand, and as long as the 
Nation shall live. 

And I pray God that the nation may live forever, and 
ever grow in greatness and in glory; and that this Capitol 
may remain undisturbed by the elements, unshaken by 
earthquakes, and unmarred by the wrath or the folly of 
man, for many, many generations; and that there shall 
remain under this imperial Dome, as an inspiration to the 
youth of the land and a perpetual memorial of the lo\-e 
of a State for a favorite son, this sublime statue erected 
here in this Hall of Glory by the great State of Kansas 
in honor of her greatest and best beloved son, John 
James Ingalls! [Lovid applause.] 



John James Iiigans. 



Address of Mr. Bowersock, of Kansas 

jMr. Speaker: New England born, Kansas bred. Xew 
England supplied largeh- the mind, brawn, and blood that 
fed the fires of freedom in Kansas, and that led to the tri- 
umph of free-state principles. Kansas grew from a New 
England sprout transplanted. A new soil, a different air, 
a unique environment is maturing a tree with roots of 
Puritan mold, but with a trunk and some branches that 
have taken shape that mav come of higher altitude, erratic 
winds, divergent soil, tempestuous birth time, and baptism 
of blood, fire, and rapine. 

Kansas, born like man in travail, cradled in struggle, 
schooled in calamity, maturing after barren reforms — 
needed, in order to triumph over internal strife, emigrant 
freaks, and climatic extremes, a t}pe of men made for the 
occasion and the event. In the history of the world, as a 
rule, when the times required the man, behold there the 
man was. 

"We are on the eve of a great national transaction, a 
transaction that will clase a cycle in the history of our 
country," said Seward, in the Kansas-Nebraska debate. 
Two men came out of New England and immigrated to 
Kansas to help close this "cycle." Two men who ha\e 
made a higher mark for much that is best, and to be best, 
it may be, in Kansas than any others. One came in the 
prime and strength of manhood; the other in the glory 
and enthusiasm of \outh. One gave his most earnest and 



76 Acceptance of Statue of 

fearless efforts to laying the foundations of the Common- 
wealth from witliin; tlie other, while a pioneer, gave to 
Kansas the best \ears of his life ovitside the boundaries of 
his State in the councils of the highest legislative body 
on earth. 

I was asked some years ago for a personal expression 
of m\- judgment as to which two men belonging to 
Kansas and a part of her liistory and achievement should 
the people honor by giving them a place in the Statuary 
Hall of the nation. Without hesitation I replied Charles 
Robin.son and John J. Ixg.vlls. 

It has been said, "Once a Kansan always a Kansan." 

Ing.\ll.s loved Kansas. It may be said of him, in liis 

own words, referring to A. D. Richardson: 

Kansas exercised tbe same fascination over him that she does over 
all who have yielded to her spell. There are some women whom to 
have once loved renders it impossible ever to love again. As the 
"gray and melancholy main" to the sailor, the desert to the Bedouin, 
the Alps to the mountaineer, so is Kansas to all her children. 

Ixc,Ai.L.s was a human electric motor, driven by a 
generator that gathered and concentrated force from the 
great plains of his adopted State and sending out light- 
ning current and spark, that, caustic like, seared and 
burned sham and e\il and struck down oppression and 
wrong. 

He could cut quickly and deep, and he conld salve a 
wound as gently as a mother soothes a babe. The thun- 
derbolt always accompanies the tornado, the rain and 
the simshine follow after. 

He was an artist, not with l)rush and pallet, but with 
words fitly jjicturing thoughts of force and beauty. Few 
men's thotights ever had more apt and complete expression. 



Jolin Janus Ligalls. 77 

Often incisive and irresistible as a mountain blizzard, 
again as mild and refreshing as a Kansas zephyr. 

He has been remo\'ed from the center of the stage, but 
not from the ken of men. Within the month one of the 
gifted writers of the capital city wrote of him as the 
" most brilliant man in the United States Senate," a 
distinction Mr. Ingalls would never have claimed. 

And George R. Peck, honored and loved by Kansans, 
and who honors Kansas, said of him : 

He was a scholar, and all his tastes were scholarly and refined. His 
knowledge of words and his unerring skill in choosing always the right 
one were proverbial. In debate I believe he was superior to John Ran- 
dolph, who in his day was the terror of his opponents. He was such a 
splendid fighter that many people think of him only as the great master 
of invective and of pitiless sarcasm; but read " Blue Grass " or his article 
on Albert Dean Richardson, or his beautiful tribute to Ben. Hill, and the 
kindly elements of his nature become strongly and sweetly visible. 

But, after all, may not the home life of the true man 
and the truly great man be the highest test? Ingalls 
stands revealed in the public searchlight; and in the mel- 
lower, softer, ofttimes somber, but more trying, light of 
home and fireside he was devoted, kind, respected, loved. 

Whether in the convention framing the constitution of 
Kansas, in the legislature, or as judge-advocate of volun- 
teers, as editor, as United States Senator, as President of 
the Senate, he was always unique, isolated, yet most kindly 
approachable, brilliant, incisive, clear, masterly. Some 
one has said: 

Acts are only symbols of the soul. God seeks the soul behind the 
symbol. 

Pigmies are pigmies still, though percht on Alps; 
And pyramids are pyramids in vales. 
Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. 
Soul grandeur only gives the measure of the man. 

[Loud applause.] 



^8 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Wiley, of Alabama 

Mr. Speakkk : The act of Congress, passed in 1864, 
converted the deserted old Hall of the House of Repre- 
sentatives into a national gallery. Under the provisions 
of that law each State of the .Vnierican I'nion has the 
legislative authority to select from among her celebrated 
dead the two citizens most worthy the honor of occupying 
a place in that historic Chamber, rendered sacred by 
enduring statues, which recall the traditions and tell the 
storv of our national life — of battles fought and victories 
won bv the courage, and of liberty preserved by the 
genius, of Anglo-Sa.xon manhood. 

A world-renowned Roman orator once declared : 

I hold that no man deserves to he crowned with honor whose life is a 
failure. He who only lives to eat and drink and accumulate money is 
a failure. The world is no better for his being in it. He never wiped a 
tear from a sad face, never kindled a fire on a frozen hearth. I repeat 
with emphasis he is a failure. There is no flesh in his heart. Let no such 
man be honored. 

But the converse of the proposition is equally true. It 
is our bounden duly to devise adequate measures to the 
end that the worthy great shall not h& forgotten. To 
perpetuate in stone or marble or bronze or bra.ss the 
memon,- of those who ha\e rendered distinguished service 
to their country, to science, or humanity is an imperative 
respon.sibility that can not be evaded. It is a laudable 
purpose to erect statues or build monuments to com- 
memorate the valor, patriotism, or useful deeds of our 



Jolni James Iiigalls. 79 

ilhistrions dead on the blood\- fields of war and in the 
busv pursuits of peace; to the soldier, statesman, orator, 
jurist, philosopher, scientist, artist, historian, poet, humani- 
tarian, and philanthropist ; to the captains of industrial 
development and commercial enterprise, as well as to 
those tmselfish members of society who devote their lives 
and spend their fortunes in relievincj suffering- humanit\'. 
To keep from oblivion "the immortal names that were 
not born to die" is but a paltry recognition of the never- 
ending obligation posterity owes to them. 

In yon Hall of Fame are costly memorials, contributed 
by the different States of the Union, which will serve to 
keep fresh in our memories the heroic endeavors put forth 
b}" our intrepid forefathers in subduing the wilderness, in 
conquering the savage red man, in resisting cruel oppres- 
sions, in protecting popular rights, and in preserving con- 
stitutional liberty. These monuments perpetuate the 
virtues and the \-alor of the brave, free, independent, and 
Christian men who built this magnificent Government of 
ours in a form so grand and enduring as to excite the 
wonder and challenge the admiration of the civilized 
world. 

The .sovereign State of Kansas has placed in Statuary 
Hall a marble effigy of JoiiN J. Ing.^i.us, as one of her 
two most useful and eminent citizens; and her sister 
States, through their representatives in Congress assem- 
bled, delight to share in his greatness and renown, in 
his glory and fame, as a common heritage of a common 
country, and are here to-day to participate in the interest- 
ing exercises which solemnize this occasion, and to assist 



8o Acceptance of Statue of 

in doing honor to the memory of this extraordinary 
character. 

In this connection we are reminded of those beautiful 
lines in Gray's Elegy : 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beaut5', all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour. 
The paths of glory lead but to the j^ave. 

A plaintive poem, more expressive of lamentation than 
even this funeral song, is contained in Incalls's own 
words. In one of his characteristic obituary addresses 
pronounced in the Federal Senate he exclaimed : 

In the democracy of the dead all men are equal. There is neither rank 
nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave. At this fatal 
threshold the ]3hilosoi)her ceases to be wise and the song of the poet is 
silent. Dives relinquishes his millions and Lazarus his rags. * * < 

Here at last is Nature's final decree in equity. The wrongs of time are 
redressed. Inju.stice is expiated, the irony of fate is refuted, the unequal 
distribution of wealth, honor, capacity, pleasure, and opportunity, which 
make life such a cruel and inexplicable tragedy, ceases in the realm of 
death. The strongest there has no supremacy and the weakest needs no 
defense. The mightest captain succumbs to that invincible adversary, 
who disarms alike the victor and the vanqui.shed. 

One of the bravest and brainiest spirits that ever dwelt 
on earth passed forever from the walks of men when John 
J. IxGALLS breathed his life away. His personality was 
picturesque. His bearing, always stately but never haughty 
nor supercilious, was that of the dignified patrician con- 
scious of his own honorable lineage and proud of his noble 
blood. His ideals were sublime and soul inspiring. 
" Wrapt in the solitude " of his own uplifting thoughts, 
his feet trod the rugged trails along and across high 
mountain tops, far beyond " the hoarse clamor of dema- 
gogues," where alone he might breathe heaven's pure air 



JoIdi Janus Iiigalls. 8i 

and commune with Nature's God, learning the divine 
truth that the murky cloud, which brings to-day a blessing 
while it hides the light, is but the merest shadow His great 
love draws out and His own glorious rainbow of promise 
consecrates forever; up yonder close to the shining stars, 

where 

Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
Is bathed in floods of living fire. 

His form towered above the common range. Classical 

and serene was his brow. Wisdom gave to his face "an 

ornament of grace." He wore iipon his head the dignity of 

kingly power; his soul possessed a dauntless heroism. 

The lordlv virtues of truth and courage led him in honor's 

pathway and committed to him an everlasting "crown of 

glor}'." These attributes proclaimed him while living a 

prince among men. As was said of another: 

All things adorned Aristippus — appearance, size, manners, and every- 
thing else. 

Nature with lavish hand decorated him in such marked 
degree that he could not avoid arresting the gaze of man- 
kind, even in the company of thousands. 

He was patriotic from principle, and not in the narrow 
sense of personal or political advantage. His life was 
spent in the service of his country, and in the loftiest 
places of trust and honor he never failed to discharge his 
full duty as a statesman. "No pent up Utica" defined the 
boundaries of his allegiance. The whole Union, irrespec- 
tive of territorial lines, was the object of his affection. He 
was a friend of freedom — a lover of liberty ever^'where. 
While he believed he could best promote the prosperity of 
T7102 — 05 6 



82 Acceptance of Statue of 

the- land b\- belonorinj^ to the Rt'jMihIic;in party, he refused 
always to favor any poHc>- wliicli inig;lit benefit one section 
at the expense of another. 

A striking ilhistration of his broad-gauji^ed American 
conservatism was furnished dnrinjj his Senatorial career. 
Parti.san animosities f^rew bitter and .sectional strife ran 
at its flood, resultinjjf in an effort by Congress to enact a 
force bill. The .southern people remember with feelintjs 
of intense gratitude that his vote was potential \\\ 
defeating that hurtful measure. 

His life and life's work were unique. His individualit>- 
embraced an aggregation of characteristics peculiarly his 
own. I shall not attempt to .sketch them, because that 
will be done by others more competent to speak, some of 
whom were actors with him in the stirring scenes of the 
past, in which he was always a .shining figure. " Nature 
was so prodigal to him in her gifts that they shone in 
clusters." In a word, he was a resplendent genius. 

We are told that from his earliest boyhood he discovered 
rare and radiant talents. He had a penetrating intellect, 
a powerful memor\-, and a dazzling imagination. He 
soon won the approbation of the people amongst whom 
he lived by his affability, marvelous learning, matchless 
eloquence, and splendid attainments. Self-poised and 
superbly equipped, both in mental and bodily powers, 
he readily eclipsed in public speaking all his competitors 
for popular favor. He finally reached the goal of his 
ambition, the Senate of the I'nited States, a body which 
Senator Morgan, of Alabama, has pictured as a chamber 
where legislation is enacted not onl\- directly affecting 



John James Iiigalls. 83 

the welfare of 80,000,000 people, "but influencing the 
councils of kingdoms and determining the fate of 
empires ; " a legislative body " not less powerful than 
the greatest tribunals that have ever assembled, the 
scope and majestic sovereignty of whose power is beyond 
description in words or by reference to any other sys- 
tems of government." 

Conspicuously able, of commanding and gracious pres- 
ence, possessing an attractive individuality, fluent in 
speech, ready in debate, and without a rival in repartee, 
he easily forged to the head of that class of statesmen 
who then stood in the front rank and were enrolled 
in the highest grade. With him life was no " iridescent 
dream." 

It was said of Cicei'o that his chief art la\' in the 
application of existing materials, in converting the dis- 
advantages of language into beauties, in enriching it 
with circumlocutions and metaphors, in pruning it of 
harsh and uncouth expressions, and in systematizing the 
structure of a sentence. This constituted him the greatest 
master of composition tlie world has ever known. 

This summary is an accurate descrij^tion of John J. 
Ingalls. 

The majesty and splendor of his eloquence will live 
until this Republic shall have perished from the face 
of the earth. While his style was remarkable for \'ersa- 
tility, lucidit)', and ease, yet in affluent, copious, and 
graphic diction he has never been surpassed in either 
branch of Congre.ss. His gorgeous vocabulary, sparkling 
with the brightest jewels of thought, was not excelled 



84 Acceptance of Statue of 

by that intellectual }j;-iant, the iin])erions Conkling. In 
beauty and elejjance of expression, in tin- logical and 
analytical treatment of his subjects, as well as in the har- 
monious arrangement of his sentences, he was the equal 
of that brilliant Southerner, the gifted and knightly 
Lamar. 

He was the j)erfect orator. 

His methods a(la]>le(l themselves with singular felicity 
to cver\- class of subjects, whether lofty or familiar, philo- 
sophic or forensic. Nothing could exceed the exquisite 
taste of his laudatory orations, imparting to the subject 
inexpressible grace and delicacy, and filling it to reple- 
tion with j)hilo.sophical sciiliments, pathos, and tenderness. 
His extraordinary facility of speech enabled him to express 
the mo.st novel and abstruse ideas with rhythmical pre- 
cision and exuberant richness; but in philippics his 
talents were displayed to the best advantage. Ardently 
patriotic him.self, personally and officially clean handed, of 
dogged courage, daring and aggressive in action, impa- 
tient of every form of sham, despising frauds, hating 
humbugs, with the biting sarcasm of a Tom Reed and 
the exasperating wit of a Thad vStevcns, he was, when 
occasion required him to strike, terrific in exposing a 
hypocrite or in flaying a political enemy well-nigh to 
death. In the acuteness of his perceptions he had no 
superior ; and no man was his peer in the earnestness 
with which he jjressed an advantage, or the adroitness 
with which he repelled the attacks of all opponents, no 
matter the guise they wore or the quarter from whence 
the\' came. 



Jolui James lugalls. 85 

After a senseless political upheaval had retired him 
from the Senate a friend who knew him intimately and 
loved him fondly described him thus: 

As an orator he was never tiresome: as a politician he never strad- 
dled; as a partisan he never strained his fealty. He did not prose and 
drone to empty benches; he did not depopulate the galleries; he did 
not drive his brother Senators into exile. He neither rested his own 
mind nor permitted the minds of his hearers to repose while he was 
speaking. He charged the air with intellectual ozone. 

There was nothing little, or dull, or insincere abotit 
the man. ''He dwelt not in the gutter. He sought his 
quarry in the opalescent empyrean and stnick and slew 
it there." But he engages our affections by the integrity 
of his jjublic conduct, the purity of his private life, the 
loyalty of his personal friendships, and the warmth of 
his domestic attachments. Such a legacy is priceless. 
"The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it; neither .shall 
it be valued with ptire gold." 

Mr. Speaker, our characters are formed and sustained 
by ourselves, by our own actions and purposes, and not 
by what others may think or say or do. 

When the fortunes of political warfare turned against 
John J. Ingalls, he was patient, forbearing, and re- 
signed on philosophic principles. 

His disciplined intellect taught him to submit to the 
inevitable and irreparable, becati.se he believed in destiny. 
Misforttines could not overwhelm liiin. His life had 
been adorned, elevated, and ennobled by the pursuit of 
worthy ends. He had not drifted about like a rudder- 
less ship, buffeted by the winds of circumstances and 
entirely at the mercy of the waves. He had not with 



86 Acceptance of Statue of 

folded aims waited for opportunities, but had labored so 
faithfully and successfully as to attain golden results. 

When the Al])s intercepted his line of march, Napoleon 
said: "There shall be no Alps." \\'lK-n difficulties beset 
him, IxG.M.us .said, "There .shall be no difficulties," and 
opposition vani.shed at his touch. 

(rrcatness has in its lexicon no such word as fail, h 
will work; it must succeed. At the .sun.set of life the 
swift-footed years brought before him no array of squan- 
dered opportunities. 

His soul was too great to be wounded by the evil shafts 
of fate; but he ha.s — 

fioiif ])ast the fret ami fever of life, 

.\I1 of his songs have been .sung, 

.And his words have been .said; 
And if bitterness lived in his soul once, or strife, 

They now are dead. 

And to-day, after the lapse of years, the Congress of 
the United States is ])roud to accept a wondrous likeness, 
chiseled out of Parian marble, of this great man and give 
it a perpetual abiding place in the Temple of Fame as 
that of Kansas's honored son, who, while living, by his 
ability, eloquence, learning, patriotism, and puljlic .ser\'ices 
best ornamented and glorified the history of that splendid 
Commonwealth. 

"Life and honor have equal title." 

In thus cherishing the memory of Joiix J. Ixg.\i.ls, 
Kansas confers upon herself, her people, an<l the nation 
a merited and imperishable honor. [Loud applause.] 



John James Iiigalls. 87 



Address of Mr. Hamilton, of Michigan 

Mr. Speaker: In 1864 the room in this Capitol now- 
known as " Statuary Hall " was set apart as a place to 
which each State might send " the effigies of two of her 
chosen sons in marble or bronze to be placed permanenth- 

here." 

At most not many may come here to .stand in bronze and 

marble while the ages go b\-. 

What, then, are the elements of greatness in John 
J.A.MES INGALLS that entitle him to come from Kansas 
here and join this marble and bronze society of the super- 
lativeh- select ? 

It is not because Ingalls was for eighteen years a 
Senator of the United States from the State of Kansas, 
and while Senator was part of the time President pro 
tempore of the Senate, or because he held other offices 
that Kansas erects his statue here. 

It is not great to hold political place. States do not set 
up monuments to men who get offices. 

It is not greatness per se even to be a United States 
Senator. Very mediocre men have sometimes been United 
States Senators. 

A place in the Senate of the United States is an oppor- 
tunity, and to be a Senator is great as Senators make it 
great. Ingalls made it great. 

His life was part of the annals of Kansas and part of 
the annals of our national life, and he commanded the 



88 Acceptance of Statue of 

constant attention of the people of the United States for 
many years. 

As Giiizot says of an eminent Frenchman : " He was 
internally garnished with mind and externally with 
speech." 

He was a student of books, a student of nature, and of 
hunianitv. He gave dignit\- and force to language. 

He was master of " skillful dialectic and literary- good 
form." 

He gave some things to prose that the world will not 
willingly let die and which have already become cla.ssics, 
and to poetry he added one perfect sonnet. 

]Mo.st things die, disintegrate, and disappear, but "Oppor- 
tunity" will decorate the P^nglish language as long as it is 
spoken, and if in some far-ofT time it w-ere possible for our 
language to become a dead language this sonnet would be 
translated as an imperishable gem. 

His talent glittered .sometimes as a diamond does, some- 
times as fire does, and .sometimes as ice does. 

His words cut sometimes like polished steel, or clung 
and blistered like coals of fire, and sometimes they were 
cold, acrid, and corrosive. 

Alwavs there flashed through his matchless sentences the 
summer lightning play of fancy, and they were pervaded by 
a sense of humor which at times invited sociability until it 
sharpened into sarcasm. 

And then again he .strung the sinews of the mind to 
energy and enterprise, .strengthened patriotism, fired the 
brain, warmed the heart, and quickened conscience. 



John James Ingalls. 89 

With some orators and writers facts travel leaden footed, 
bnt Ingalls gave to facts life, color, vitality, and wings. 

As was said of Bnrns, " his speech was distinguished by 
always having something in it." 

There have been greater lawyers, greater poets, greater 
philosophers, greater orators, and greater statesmen than 
he, but Ingalls swept law, philosophy, poetry and state- 
craft into his own intellectual crucible and transformed 
them into a new intellectual composite, stamped with his 
own originality into something unique and rare, and that 
was Ingalls. 

For a long time Ingalls meant Kansas and Kansas 
meant Ingall.s. 

Once in the Senate of the United States, Kansas being 
attacked bv a Senator from Pennsylvania, Ingalls shot 
back the swift retort that Pennsylvania had " produced but 
two great men — Benjamin Franklin, of Massachusetts, and 
Albert Gallatin, of Switzerland." 

Whether this was true of Pennsylvania or not, it is true 
that, among other great men, Kansas has produced at least 
one sTeat man from Massachusetts. 

Ingalls was born in Middleton, Mass., December 29, 
1833, and came to Kansas in 1858, three years before 
Kansas became a State, allured by a real estate agent's 
" chromatic triumph of lithographed mendacity." 

Ingalls had this lithograph framed, and it hung upon 
the walls of his home long after Kansas had begun to 
realize a greater prosperity than that with which " the 
Pilgrim Fathers of Kan.sas," in the epoch of Ingalls's 



go Acceptance of Staluc of 

arrival, beguiled " the dazzled vision of the emigrating 

])Ilhlic." 

He li\ed through the period of blanket Indians, "jay- 
hawkers," grasshop])ers, and predatory politicians. 

He lived in Kansas and Kansas lived_ in him "till death 
had made him marble," and somehow he had absorbed the 
spirit of Kansas, and b^• his genius transmuted, glorified it, 
and gave it back to Kansas in pictures of herself that 
in"ged her people on to nobler enterprise. 

IxGALi.s was not only a Senator of the United States 
from the State of Kansas, but he was Kansas's minstrel 
in prose, who told at every Kansas fireside the epic of her 
life and stirred the Kansan heart to pride and high 
endeavor. 

Since then our frontier has pushed westward around the 
world to the doors of the oldest civilization, converting in 
its wake the .sod house, the dugout, and the corral into 
comfortable farmhouses, barns, and granaries. 

The Mississippi River, once, as Goldwin vSuiitli says, "a 
mental horizon, afterwards a boundary line," has l)ecome 
a great highwax', where the .ships of all nations shall come 
and go between the Occident and the Orient, through the 
Panama Canal. 

And of this transition the life of John J. In(1.alls was 
a part. 

His picture was hung upon the walls of dugout and of 
mansion and is fixed in the memory of e\ery li\ing man 
and woman in Kansas. 



J aim James Iiijra/ls. 91 

His words have found a permanent lodgment, not only 
in the literature of the world, but in the hearts of the 
people of Kansas, now and for all time. 

Hence Kansas erects his statue here. 

But if Kansas had not set his statue here, people would 
have asked: "Where is Ingalls?" and would have sup- 
plied his place with memory and imagination, as Cato 
hoped the world would do of him if his statue were not 
erected in the Forum. 

We gather around his statue, who was once "emperor 
in the realm of expression" in the line of succession of 
those who reign h\ right of genius and of labor. There 
have been others who were greater than he, but for a 
time he held the scepter. 

And we seek to frame phrases of the greatest phrase 
maker of his time. 

We grope for words of fitting eulogy of him whose 
euloo-ies rescued from obli\-ion those of whom he wrote. 

"Pictures and statues ma>- be made of him, but he 
returns no more to the sun." 

He died August 16, 1900, before he began to cast the 
senile shadow of a robust past. " Sometimes, by living on, 
the star pales." 

He died just at the end of summer, just at the beginning 
of autumn, and a little before winter. 

He died near the end of one centur\- and the beginning 
of another, in the midst of time, which, according to man's 
calendar, is eternally beginning and ending, and yet is 
without beginning and without ending forever. 



92 Acceptance of Statue of 

Inc.ai.i.s speculated deeply on the "unending, endless 
cjnest " for inimortalit\- ; but no man realized more clearly 
than he that "tlie philosopher's longest chain of deduc- 
tions" reaches no conclusion. 

He realized — none more clearly — that, as Carlyle says: 
"Skepticism writing about belief may have great gifts, but 
it is realh- ultra vires there. It is blindness laying down 
the laws of optics." 

And Ingalls reached the conclusion that "a universe 
without a God is an intellectual absurdit\- which reason 
rejects spontaneously." 

In his essay on the "Immortality of the soul" he says: 
" If all the letters in the play of Hamlet were shaken in a 
dice box and thown at midnight in a tempest on the Desert 
of Sahara, they might fall exacth- as arranged in the drama. 
It may be admitted that if Destiny kept on casting long 
enough they would inevitably at some time so fall, which 
would render the bard of Avon superfluous and unneces- 
sary. But this does not disturb our belief in Shakespeare." 

In June, 1900, away from home, seeking the return of 
health which never came, he wrote: "I am desperately 
tired and discouraged and homesick ; " and forty days later, 
on his deathbed, after all the groping, speculation, and 
reasoning were over, he came back to the faith of little 
children and prayed: "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be 
done." [Loud applause.] 



Johi James Iiigalls. 93 



Address of Mr. Scott, of Kansas 

Mr. Speaker: In the midst of Asgard, the home of 
the old Norse gods, so the legend runs, there stood the 
great Walhalla, the battle hall. Its massive walls rose 
skyward until the battlements and towers that surmounted 
them were lost to view. Through each of its 540 doors 
800 men, mounted and mailed, could ride at once. To 
this splendid and majestic hall came all the warriors 
who had fallen in battle, and there, in the presence of 
the great god Odin, the days were spent in fencing and 
tournaments and other kingh' sports, and the nights in 
feasting and song. 

Advancing enlightenment and civilization have exacted 
their penalties, and we can no longer frighten our souls 
with visions of " fierce, iier}- warriors that fight upon the 
clouds in ranks, squadrons, and right forms of war," nor 
charm our fancy with dreams of the old gods at pla}-. 

And yet we have our Walhalla. The hard materialism 
of this later da}-, the garish light of scientific research 
and analysis which has robbed us of the illusions and 
romance that hung about the twilight of the race, have 
not banished from our hearts the sentiment of reverence 
for the memory of our countrj^'s mighty dead. And so 
most fittingly there has been set apart in this noble 
structure, which is the very heart of the nation, a stately 
and spacious chamber to which the States may bring for 



94 Acceptance of Statue of 

a loving and everlasting memorial the bronze or marble 
effigies of those who, while they lived, were the choice 
and master spirits of their age. Hither ha^•e they come, 
statesmen, soldiers, sages, to stand in simple majesty as 
long as stands the Repnblic for which the>' wrought and 
thought, an inspiration forever to their countrymen, a 
perpetual witness of the nation's gratitude to those who 
have sen-ed her well. 

Into this Hall of Remembrance, into this goodly com- 
pany, Kansas brings to-day the speaking likeness of one 
who, more than any other of her sons, was the incarnation 
of her sentiments and convictions, her hopes and ambitions 
and dreams. For nearly a (juarter of a centnn>- he was her 
voice speaking to the nation, and the \oice never fell upon 
reluctant or inattentive ears. For more than a quarter of a 
centur\- he was her lover, unflagging in his devotion, her 
champion, challenging with unwavering loyalty all who 
sought to detract or defame. And now that the voice is 
still with which he sjjoke his l()\e and loyalty, she brings 
here this living likeness of his outer form to stand through 
all the coming time, mute but eloquent, a memorial of her 
gratitude and pride. 

In some small degree a man is the product of his envi- 
ronment. In nnich greater measure he is the resultant of 
ancestral convictions and culture and point of view. When 
John J.-\mes Ixg.-vlls went to Kan.sas, almost at the clima.x 
of the brief but blood>- drama which proved, alas, but the 
prologue to the stupendous tragedy which was to be placed 
out a little later with half a continent for its stage, with 
4,000,000 men for its actors, with all the world for specta- 



John James Ingalls. 95 

tors, and with the thunder of conntless cannon for its 
orchestral nmsic, he found himself in an environment 
which fitted in well with the ancestral forces that had gone 
to the shaping of his soul. The spirit of daring and adven- 
ture which drove his Viking forbears to the concjuest of 
Britain, and which, a thousand years later, impelled their 
descendants to brave the dangers of a stormy and tempestu- 
ous sea to reach the doubtful haven of a new world, lived 
again in the youth who left the quiet safety of the secluded 
New England village to face alone the terrors and hard- 
ships of the savage and desolate frontier. The fierce resent- 
ment against oppression and outrage which had come down 
through generations of men who had blotted the word 
master out of their vocabulary- was aroused anew by the 
call for help for freedom. The organizing instinct of a 
race of nation makers, of empire builders, found exultant 
exercise in the opportunity to have a hand in laying the 
foundations and shaping the destin>- of a new Common- 
wealth. And in the rugged beauty of the wooded bluffs 
that guard the eastern border of Kansas, in the vast stretches 
of her limitless western plains, in the incomparable blue of 
her arching skies, the poet in this man, the development of 
a hundred years of refinement and culture, found a fascina- 
tion that never released him from its spell. 

And so it is not strange, after all, that this New England 
scholar, patrician to his finger tips, born friend of all the 
luxuries and refinements of life, shrinking instinctively 
from rudeness and violence as from hardship and exposure, 
found himself at home in Kansas at a time when that name 
was but another word for tumult and riot and disorder. 



96 Acceptance of Statue of 

The fight for freedom exhilarated him like wine. The joy 

of State building quickened all his mental energies. The 

" imknown and mysterious solitudes " of the wide-sweeping 

prairies stimulated his imagination with a power that he 

could not resist. 

In his own matchless phrase, describing the fascination 

which Kansas exercised upon him, and upon all who came 

within her spell, he said : 

The Arabs say that he who drinks of the waters of the Nile must always 
thirst; no otlier waters can quench or satisfy. So those who have done 
homage and taken the oath of fealty to Kansas can never be alienated or 
forsworn. * * * .\s the gray and melancholy main to the .sailor, as 
the desert to the Bedouin, as the Alps to the mountaineer, so is Kansas to 
those who love her. 

But Ing.ai,i..s fitted Kansas no less than Kan.sas fitted 
him. Nervous, energetic, fond of superlatives, given to 
extremes, tremendously aspiring and ambitious, sometimes 
wrong, but always seeking to be right, Kansas recognized 
in Ingali.s a kindred spirit, for many of her characteristics 
were his also. He felt her moods; he foresaw her conclu- 
.sions; he spoke her language; he .satisfied her passion for 
the picturesciue and unusual; he captured her imagination. 
And though .she quarreled with him sometimes and criti- 
cised him often, and at the last, in a period of cyclonic 
unrest and luireason, rejected him, yet down in her hearjt 
she loved him alwa^'s and gloried in him and was supremely 
proud of him. 

For eighteen years he was a Senator of the United 
States, and although there were numbered among his 
contemporaries stich intellectual and forensic giants as 
Sherman and Conkling and Blaine and Carpenter and 



John Jaincs Jiigalls. 97 

Hoar and Thunnan and Voorhees and Vest and Morgan 
and Hill, he did not suffer obscuration or eclipse. In 
the chair he was a superb presiding officer, ready, alert, 
incisive, impartial. On the floor the mere announcement 
that Ingalls was to speak brought every Senator to his 
seat and filled the galleries with thronging and eager lis- 
teners, and that, too, in an age when oratory is said to be a 
forgotten art. In debate he was aggressive and pitiless, 
unsparing in attack and incredibly skilled in defense, a 
foeman of whom the boldest might well beware. 

But great as he was on the platform and in the forum, 
it was in the realm of letters that he struck and sus- 
tained the loftiest notes in thought and speech and 
builded the most enduring monument. 

Those of us whose good fortune it has been to hear 
him and see him can never forget the music of that 
marvelous \oice or the light that flamed from the won- 
derful eves or the splendid poise of the noble, silver- 
crowned head, and the glamour of his fascinating 
personalit}' will be thrown for us who knew him over 
all that lie wrote or spoke, giving it a special meaning 
and significance. With the passing of this generation 
the memon,' of the voice and eye and manner will fade, 
and yet to those who come after us a splendid legacy 
will remain to keep green the memory of one whose 
mastery of the English tongue has not been equaled in 
our day. 

For what a wizard with words he was ! No matter how 
hackneyed the theme or how conventional the thought, 
17102— ©5 7 



98 Acceptance of Statue of 

he arrayed it in sucli stately and splendid apparel that it 

stands forth as individual and distinct as if it had never 

before had an existence. To select from all the glittering 

heap of his jewels one gem that shines with a pnrer ray 

than the others is not an easy task, and yet whenever I 

take np his writings I find myself turning always to the 

story of the grass : 

lirass is the forgiveness of nature — her constant benerliction. Fields 
trampled \s\W\ battle, saturate<l with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, 
grow green again with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned 
bv traffic become grass-grown , like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests 
decay, har\-ests perish, flowers vanish, l)ut grass is immortal. Beleagured 
by the sullen hosts of winter, it withdraws into the impregnable fortress 
of its subterranean vitality and emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. 
Sown by the winds, by wandering birds, ])ropagated by the subtle horti- 
culture of the elements, which are its ministers and servants, it softens the 
rude outline of the world. Its tenacious fibers hold the earth in its place, 
and prevent its soluble components from washing into the wasting sea. 
It invades the solitary deserts, climbs the inaccessible slopes and forbid- 
ding ]5innacles of mountains, modifies climates, and detennines the history, 
character, and destinj-of nations. Unobtrusive and patient, it has immortal 
vigor and aggression. Bani.shed from the thoroughfare and the field, it 
bides its time to return, and when vigilance has relaxed, or the dj-nasty 
has perisheil, it silently resumes the throne from which it has been expelled, 
but which it never abdicates. 

I do not know anything in luiglish prose sweeter and 
finer than that, and I do not know anything .stronger and 
richer in English poetry than the .single .sonnet, "Oppor- 
tnity," with which he enriched the literature of all com- 
ing time. 

Master of human destinies am 1 1 

Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. 

Cities and fields 1 walk; I i)enetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 

Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 

I knock unbidden once at every gate ! 

If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 



Jolni Jauics Iiio-al/s. ()C) 

I turn away. It is the hour of fate, 

And they who follow nie reach every state 

Jlortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, 

Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. 

I answer not, and I return no more ! 

That the shadow of oblivion should ever fall upon the 

memory- of the man who added such perfect notes to the 

world's harnioii}- is unbelievable. 

He knew language, one of his friends .said, as the devout Moslem knew 
his Koran. All the deeps and shadows of the sea of words had been 
sounded and surveyed by him and duly marked upon the chart of his 
great mentality. In the presence of an audience he was a magician 
like those of Egypt ; under the power of his magic syllables became 
.scorpions, an inflection became an indictment, and with words he builded 
temples of thought that excited at first the wonder and at all times the 
admiration of the world of literature and statesmanship. He was emperor 
in the realm of expression. The English-speaking people will listen long 
before again the}- hear the harmony born of that perfect fitting of phrase 
to thought that marked he utterances of John J. Ing.\lls. 

The one sure test of the worthine.ss of a man to hold 
high place is to note the level to which he rises or sinks 
when retired to pri\-ate life. The man who drifts into 
unnoted obscurity when no longer buoyed up hv an impor- 
tant office, thereby demonstrates that it was the office 
which brought the man into view, and not the man who 
exalted the office. Senator Ingalls stood this test. 
Thrust from the commanding eminence of the greatest 
earthly parliament, he lost not one line of his stature. 
Great newspapers were eager to put him upon their staff at 
twice the salary he had received as Senator. Magazine 
editors besieged him for articles and lycemn managers lay 
in wait to allure him onto the lecture platform. In all the 
cities of the land where he could be induced to speak the 



loo Acceptance of Statue of 

people thronged to hear liim, and what lie wrote was 
sonufht for by his conntrynien with nndiniinishcd interest. 
And so his star never waned, but grew brighter and 
brighter until suddenly, and all too soon, it swept below 
the horizon of this life to rise upon another world. 

I have spoken of Ix(",.\Lts, the public man — the Senator, 
the writer, the lecturer — the man whom all the world knew. 
To speak of hiui as the husband and father, the citizen 
and friend, I shall not venture, although I knew him well. 
Fearless, positive, aggressive, armed always and ready to 
deliver as well as receive attack, it was inevitable that he 
shotdd excite strong antagonism, and while he lived the 
tongue of calumny was rarely silent. There were those 
who said he was cynical and .selfi.sh. I only know that 
one of his neighbors said: "The light in the windows of 
Atchison went out when Ingalls died." There were 
those who said he was indifferent and cold-hearted. I only 
know that his children adored him as much as they honored 
him, and that to the wife of his youth he remained to the 
end a hero and a lover. There were those who .said he 
was a scoffer and a nii.sbeliever. I only know that one 
early summer morning, as the rosy fingers of the dawn 
were lifting the sable curtains from the somber New 
Mexico hills, with his hand in the hand of his true love 
and his faintin<^ lips repeating after her his childood 
prayer — " ( )tu' l-'ather who art in heaven " — he fell asleep. 

All that was mortal of him lies within the soil of the 
State he loved so well, in the city of the home which 
was the shrine of his life's devotion, which he left always 
with regret and to which he returned with joy. Some- 



Joint James lugaUs. loi 

where in God's universe, in the undiscovered country, his 
serene soul rests — and waits. 

And Kansas, "who was first in his hours of triumph, 
who shared his well-won laiirels, who basked in the 
sunlight of his success and partook of the. fruits of his 
victories," brings to-day to the nation's Hall of Fame this 
marble likeness of his outer form as a perpetual witness 
of her love and pride. Other men have rendered Kansas 
noble service. (3ther men will win her affection and good 
will. But deep in her heart, as she remembers all the 
pride and exultation that swelled her soul in the old 
days when men spoke the name of John JameS Ingalls, 
she will exclaim with Hamlet: 

He was a man, take him for all in all, 
I shall not look upon his like again. 

[Loud applause.] 



I02 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Campbell, of Kansas 

Mr. Si'i:.\k1':r : Tlic consideration of appropriations, 
revision, rates, and rel)ates is laid aside the while we reflect 
upon death, and attempt, in the only way we can, to 
give immortality to life. The ceremonies of this hour deal 
with the fact of death and the question of immortality. 

Everywhere, in field and mart and from the cradle to 
the grave, life is at war with death. It is an unequal 
encounter. The millions who have come involuntarily to 
the cradle have gone involuntarily to the grave. The 
strong are as impotent in the struggle as the weak. 
Thrones and empires are not citadels of defense for kings 
and emperors. The ho\-el and the shack furnish no refuge 
for the poor and helpless. Soon or late, all lie down 
together in the "democracy of the grave." 

Senator Ixg.^lus has tried the problem of life and .solved 
the m\ster>- of death. While busy with care, anxiety, 
hate, love, andjition, he often paused to a.sk with the sages, 
philosophers, and prophets of the age.s, "If a man die, .shall 
he H\-e again?" 

There has ever been, and i.s, much consolation in the fact 
that the question of the soul's immortality is not left for 
answer to the wise, who.se l)odies rest in abbeys of renown 
and whose statues adorn halls of fame, more than to the 
simple who come and go without the notice of the pas.s- 
ing crowd. To the- innumerable multitude "the heavens 



Joliii James Ingalls. 103 

declare the •-^Xoxx of (lod, and tlie firmament showeth 
His handiwork;" to the great thron.o- "succeeding days 
are eloquent with speech and night unto night resplendent 
with knowledge." Though there is no voice or language, 
iuimortality is written e\-er>-where upon the earth and in 
the heavens. 

May we not hope that all the countless dead now know 
the truth declared by Jesus of Nazareth, that the soul shall 
never die? If it were not so, win- this eflfort to perpetuate 
in marble an effigy of dust? Win- did he, to whose image 
we give fame, devote so much of time and draw upon so 
much talent to rear for himself a monument that shall 
remain when the marble we unveil shall be veiled again 
with the dust and ashes of ages? 

The drapery of night is hung from the horizon with a 
star. 

I had no personal acquaintance with Senator IxGALLS, 
and saw him onh" a few times, but I ha\-e always been 
proud of the fact that he was a Kansan and loved Kansas. 
It has been said of him that during his eighteen years' 
service in the vSenate he did not frame or secure the passage 
of an important measure. Howe\-er that may be, he did 
enough ; enough at once for his own fame and for the 
glory of his State — "Satis, Satis est, quod vixit, vel ad 
setatem, vel ad gloriam." 

He excelled in everything he did. There was nothing 
to be said when he was done with eulog\- ; nothing could 
be added when he finished invective. He was master of 
English, whether speaking or writing. His friends 
listened with pleasure and his foes with admiration when 



104 Acceptance of Statue of 

he addressed the Senate. His words were so fashioned into 
clauses and periods, paragraphs and orations, that what he 
said was alike intelligible to the crowd and entertaining 
to the critic. 

An old man, who had been a visitor to the vSenate 
galler}- for a period covering forty years, said, soon after 
IxGALLS'S retirement: " Ixg.\lls, of Kansas, attracted 
greater audiences, both to the floor and the galleries, when 
he spoke thaii any Senator who had been a member in 
forty years, and none ever presided over the delibera- 
tions of that great bodN- with greater ease and dignity 
than he." A woman who has lived in \Va.shington ever 
since Ing.\li.s entered the Senate .said a few da\s ago 
she liad never heard him make a .speech that had Ijcen 
annomiced. The galleries were always crowded when 
she arrived. 

I shall leave a delineation of his character and a re- 
view of his work to tlio.se who knew him better than I. 

Kansas honored Ing.\lls and Ing.\i,i.s honored Kajisas. 

Few loved him, many feared him, but all admired him. 
He loved his home and was bound by its ties. He loved 
his State and gloried in its history. He loved his coun- 
try and was devoted to its institutions. He returned too 
early to the .skies. 

[Loud applause.] 



John James Ingalls. 105 



Address of Mr. Miller, of Kansas 

]\Ir. Speaker : The world's post-mortem estimate of 
man's character is not usually in harmony with its ante- 
mortem conception. It is only when prejudice, factional 
feelings, and jealousies have been stilled by the hand of 
death that man's correct measure is taken. It is then he is 
viewed in the impartial light of histon-, neither glamour 
nor gloom lending tint to the true estimate of his character 
and worth as a man and citizen. It is then the merited 
recognition is bestowed that rarely comes to him while in 
the midst of his activities, and at last he is awarded his 
true place in hearts and memories, and he lives on. To 
live thus is not to die, and to any man it is a priceless 
monument. But to those whom a nation delights to honor, 
who have made their impress for good upon their country's 
histor>', and who, in a measure, belong to all her people, it 
is indeed fitting that their deeds should be commemorated 
by public ceremonies and their memories perpetuated in 
marble and bronze to inspire patriotism in the hearts of 
future generations. 

In pursuance of this idea a law was enacted b)- Congress 
in 1864 authorizing the President to invite all vStates to 
furnish statues in marble or bronze, not exceeding two in 
number for each vState, of deceased persons who have been 
citizens thereof and illustrious for their historic renown or 
for distinguished civic or military services, to be placed in 
the National Statuarv Hall. 



io6 Acceptance of Statu e of 

III cc)in])liance with this resohitioti, Mr. Speaker, Kansas 
has presented and asks Congress to accept a marble statne 
of her ilhistrious son, John James Ixgai.i.s, the scholar, 
writer, orator, and statesman. 

The facts in connection with the early history of ;\Ir. 
In'GALI.S and his ancestry ha\c a significant bearing upon 
his i)ublic career. He was born in Middleton, Mass., 
December 29, 1833, of nnmi.xed Puritan ancestry, and the 
eldest of a famih- of nine children. 

On his father's side he was descended from Ednnmd 
Ingalls, wlu), coming from England, founded the city of 
I^ynn in 162.S. .\nd through his mother his ancestry in 
this country goes back to .V(iuila Chase, who settled in New 
Hamp.shire about 1630. His parents were liigh types of 
the English Puritan, his father being a man of unusual 
intelligence. Doubtless from him his son inherited tho.se 
mental activities that characterized his entire life. It is 
.said that at the age of 2 years the child Ixgalls could 
read understandingly. 

His school life began in the public schools of Haverhill. 
At 16 he was under the instruction of a private tutor, and 
at the .same time was a frequent contributor to literary 
maga.'iines and to local metropolitan ne\% .spaper.s. Among 
the former was the Knickerbocker Magazine and the Carpet 
Bag, published by B. P. Shillaber, commonly known as 
" M rs. Part i ngton . ' ' 

He was a graduate of Williams College in 1S55, and 
twenty-five years later his alma mater chose him to deliver 
the annual address and at this time conferred upon him the 
degree of doctor of laws. 



John James Tm^a/ls. 107 

He was admitted to the practice of law in 1S57, and in 
1858 he went to the Territory of Kansas. Of this event 
he said: ^ 

My studies completed, I joined the uninterrupted and resistless column 
of volunteers that marched to the lands of the free. 

It was the mission of the pioneer with his plow to abolish the frontier 
and to subjugate the desert. One has become a boundary and the other 
an oasis. But with so much acquisition something has been lost for which 
there is no equivalent. He is unfortunate w'ho has never felt the fascina- 
tion of the frontier; the temptation of unknown and mysterious solitudes; 
the exultation of helping to build a State, of forming its institutions, and 
giving direction to its cause. 

Mr. InXx.\lls gave to Kansas the iinst affection of his 
yonng manhood. He loved Kansas from the day he 
crossed the invisible line that .separates her from Mis.sonri 
nntil the night he crossed that other invisible line that 
separates time from eternit}'. Next to wife and family, 
Kansas was first in his thoughts when honors were be- 
stowed upon him and the world- applauded. Kansas was 
last in his thoughts when life's fitful fever ebbing low his 
tired heart yearned for home and Kansas. 

And how could it be otherwise, when for forty years the 
threads of his life had been woven in the warp and woof 
of the State he had aided in an unparalleled struggle for 
freedom; the State he had been a factor in as her prairies 
were transformed into fruitful farms, with churches and 
schoolhouses on every hillside, and with prosperous towns 
dotting her 81,000 square miles of territory. What won- 
der his heart yearned for the State he had helped make 
a really great State, for, in the language of Governor Hoch, 

The real greatness of a State is not measured by its territorial extent, 
not bv its material resources, but by its code of laws and by the character 
of its people. Nowhere has advancing civilization crystallized in better 
government, or flowered in a higher citizenship. Illiteracy has found its 
lowest percentage here, and crime its most meager statistics. 



io8 Acceptance of Statue of 

This is the Kansas Mr. Ingai.i.s IonccI. He was present 
at her birth and imbibed her spirit of liberty, and it was 
this State, his choice of all the nation's Commonwealths, 
that he sought to crown with glory dnring all the years of 
his manhood. 

That Mr. IxG.\i,i,s shonld be reckoned with as a power 
in politics and that he should be a potent factor in framing 
the State constitution in the Wyandotte convention in 
1859, was inevitable. His keenness of penetrability, 
promptness in decision, honesty of pnrpo.se, unswerving 
loyalty to what he believed to be right, absolute fearless- 
ness and independence of thought and action, with his 
intense nature, made his a positive character and him a 
representative man. 

.•Vnd there he .stands in memory to thi.s <lay, erect and self-poised — 
X witness to the ages as they pass. 
That simple dpty hath no jilace for fear. 

In 1S72, when the turn of fortune's wheel inserted a 
dramatic chapter in the history of this State of conflict, 
where, from the beginning of her history, every advance 
step has been combated, it was again inevitable that Mr. 
Ing.m.l.s .should l;e cho.sen to enter the breach, by the joint 
branches of the legislature ; and thus begin a career in the 
United States Senate, unprecedented and unparalleled. 

The finger of destiny had long pointed in this direction. 
As a close student of politics, as editor of the Atchison 
Champion, and as a member of the State senate, Mr. 
Ingalls was being prepared for the high obligations this 
election placed upon liiui. I'or almost twenty years he 
was one of the most conspicuous figures at the nation's 



Joint Janus Iiigalls. 109 

Capitol, always serving his State and country with self- 
reliant courage and faithfully performing his duties as 
chairman of Committee on Pensions; of the District of 
Columbia, and of Special Committee on Bankrupt Law; as 
a member of the Judiciary, Indian Affairs, Privileges and 
Elections, Education and Labor, and of many other special 
committees. 

Among the many Members of both Houses of Congress 
who have championed the cause of the soldier of this 
Republic the soldiers themselves owe to none a deeper debt 
of gratitude than to Senator Ingalls, who at all times 
while in public life was earnest and untiring to secure for 
those men who had imperiled life and health to save the 
nation the relief to which he thought they were justly 
entitled. 

He was the author of the arrears act, which was the 
means of giving $200,000,000 to the survi\'ing veterans of 
the civil war. This act was of inestimable value, particu- 
larly to the people of the West, for more than $10,000,000 
received as the result of tliis legislation was devoted to the 
lifting of mortgages and the saving of homesteads of the 
people of Kansas and other Western States. This act alone 
will stand as a monumewt to its author in the hearts of 
the loyal and patriotic people of this country as long as 
one of her soldiers live. 

Senator, Ingalls was a pioneer upon advanced ideas. 
He was at all times a friend of labor and agriculture ; was 
an earnest advocate of legislation against trusts, combina- 
tions, and monopolies, and as early as 1880 he was an 
earnest advocate of a canal connecting the two oceans, 



no Acceptance of Statue of 

thereby providing for cheaper transportation of our prodncts 
to a foreign market. 

After the passage of the electoral commission bill, which 
provided for a settlement of the contest between Hayes and 
Tilden, Senator Inc.ai.i.s was designated with Senator 
Allison, of Iowa, as one of the tellers, and thus the senior 
Senator from Kansas was identified with what Senator 
Edmunds said was "a dispute probably as great as ever 
existed in the world under the law." 

From 1887 to 1889 Mr. Ixg.\ll.s was President pro 
tempore of the Senate. Seven times an election to this 
high office came to him unanimousK-, and in the perform- 
ance of the duties of this position he always displayed 
the utmost dignit)', impartiality, and courtesy. A past 
master of debate and repartee, he constantly demon.strated 
the most thorough knowledge of parliamentary procedure. 

On his retirement the following resolution was adopted 
by his colleagues: 

Jiesoll'cd, That the thanks of the Senate are due and are hereby ten- 
dered to Hon. John J. IngaI.LS, Senator from the .State of Kansa.s, for the 
eminently courteou.s, dignified, able, and alisolutely impartial manner in 
which he has presided over the deliberations ami performed the duties of 
President pro tempore of the .Sen.ite. 

The Senate, as a further testimonial of its appreciation, 
presented him wilh the clock which had marked the 
time for that body from 1852 to 1890. 

I quote from Mr. Ing.\lls's farewell speech to the 
Senate as its presiding officer, as follows: 

Senators, gratitude impels and usage permits the Chair to postpone for 
an instant the moment of our separation to acknowledge the honor of 
your resolution of confidence and approval. 



I 



John J a Dies Iiigalls. iii 

But justice demands the admission that if the Chair has succeeded in 
the delicate and important duties of his position; if order has been main- 
tained in debate; if laws have been impartially administered; if prompt- 
ness, facility, and correctness in the transaction of public business have 
been secured; if the traditions of the Senate, which are its noblest herit- 
■ age, have been preserved inviolate, it is due to your considerate indul- 
gence, to your cordial and constant cooperation. Without these the greatest 
abilities could not succeed; with these the humblest faculties could not fail. 

;\Ir. Speaker, am I asked why Kansas has chosen John 
J. Ingalls as her first ilhistrions son to be represented 
in Stattiarv Hall? Is it because, as has been .said, "he 
was one of the most unique, brilliant, and notable figures 
in American politics?" 

This and more. His was a many-sided character. He 
was a scholar, with all the refined taste and instincts of 
the scholar. 

He possessed a prolific, active mind that worked like 
the play of lightning. 

In his correct and scholarh- use of language, concise 
and exhaustive treatment of every subject claiming his 
attention, his ready wit and- repartee, his keen invective 
and biting sarcasm, he stands without a peer. 

In debate he was a gladiator. In conversation he was 
the genial, fluent speaker and earnest and sympathetic 
listener, of whom it was said, " Whether he was conversing 
with a solemn thinker, a woman, or a lo-year-old boy, 
he always adapted himself to circumstances." 

It has been further said of him: 

He knew language as the devout Moslem knew his Koran. All the 
deeps and shallows of the sea of words have been sounded and surveyed 
by him and duly marked upon the chart of his great mentality. In the 
presence of an audience he was a magician like those of Egypt; under the 
power of his magic, syllables became scorpions, an inflection became an 
indictment; and with words he builded temples of thought that excited at 



1 1 2 Acceptance of Statue of 

first the wonder and at all times the admiration of the world of literature 
and statesmanship. He was emperor in the realm of expression. The 
English-speakinfj people will listen lonj; before again they hear the liar- 
niony born of that perfect fitting; of phrase to thought that marked the 
utterances of John J. Inc..\li,s. 

Ingali.s wa.s a great man. Emerson says of snch an 

one: 

I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere of thought 
into which other men rise with labor and with difficulty. * * » 
Who is what he is from nature and never reminds us of others. 

Wade Hampton, the soul of honor and a lover of 
courtesy, said that he was a man of rare genius and one 
of the most companionable of men. 

Maj. IIenr> Inmau gave the following estimate of Mr. 
Ing.^lls: 

For eighteen years, in the mo.st illustrious deliberative assembly of 
modern times, his speeches have attracted the closest attention of the 
people by their fearless expression of thought, elegance of diction, phe- 
nomenal plira.seology, and forcible .style. 

.As a parliamentarian he was without a superior, for a longer period 
presiding over the deliberations of the Senate than any one man as its 
President pro tempore. Receiving the unanimous vote of both parties for 
the position, is an unparalleled tribute to his impartiality, ability, and 
familiarity with rules, precedents, and fine points in parliamentary law. 

As a designer of sentences he was incomparable. There are other 
.Americans who are more eloquent in the rigid acceptation of the term, 
but in description, vigor, .sparkling, passionate use of the Knglish lan- 
guage he occupies a po.sition sui generis. He was the Cicero of his gener- 
ation; master of that most effective oratorical attribute in debate, sarcasm, 
but absolutely devoid of the inordinate vaunting of his own powers, 
which .so marred the brilliancy of the innnortal Roman. 

He was one of the most fascinating of writers. To his purely literary 
work he brought all the brilliancy of his oratory, magnificent construc- 
tion of sentences, wealth of phraseology. 

Charles S. deed said of him: 

His voice was a poli.shed ramrod of sound, without fur or feathers, 
traversing space as swiftly as light, without a whir or flutter, as if shot 
by an explosive of inconceivable power. 



John James Ingalls. 113 

In any age of the world's history Mr. Ingaixs would 
have been distinguished. In the days of Desinosthenes 
he would have taken high rank as an orator; in the days 
of Shakespeare or Milton he would have been recognized 
as a writer of the first rank. 

When the printed words that have for a time claimed 
the world's attention are lost in oblivion, there will live 
with the sonnets of Shakespeare, Milton, and Mrs. Brown- 
ing, Ingalls'.s sonnet: 

OPPORTl'NITV 

Master of human destinies am I ! 

Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. 

Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 

Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 

I knock unbidden once at every gate. 

If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 

I turn away. It is the hour of fate, 

And they who follow me reach every state 

Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate. 

Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. 

I answer not, and I return no more ! 

Such was Mr. Ing.aixs as the world knew him. By 
many he was regarded as cold, austere, forbidding, but to 
the few who were able to see through the outer man 
there came glimpses of the spring of affection that 
sparkled and bubbled continualh', giving a calm and 
peaceful undertone to his life. This was the inner man 
and the one known within the sacred home circle where 
life was ideal and where the beloved and loving com- 
panion was his most trusted friend and counselor and 
whose unwavering confidence in him was his inspiration 
17102 — 05 8 



114 Acceptance of Statue of.-' 

and the inainsprinjj of his existence. To the large 
family of bright and interesting children his intense 
natnre manifested itself in devotion only second to that 
bestowed npon his wife. 

In all the messages ni)on which the world has been 
permitted to glance that went ont from the pen of Mr. 
In(;.\LLS to the waiting family on the banks of the 
Missonri this spirit of tenderest devotion is manifest. 

In a letter to his sister after the death of his yonng 
danghter, Rnth, I\Ir. IXG.\LLS said: 

My bereavement seems to me like a cruel ilream from which I shall 
soon awaken. The light has gone out of my life. Ruth was my 
favorite child. Her temperament was tranquil and consoling; she 
gratified my love of the beautiful, my desire for repose. I loved her 
most because she was so much like her dear mother. * * * j atn 
assured we shall meet again. 

In another letter he says: 

I would love to gather you all around the library fire this bitter 
night and talk over the affairs of the day. 

To his datighter Constance, absent from home at 
school, he wrote : 

Write to me if there is anything you want. I should be your friend 
even if you were not my child. 

In a letter after the death of Senator Sumner he said : 

How full of mournful tragedies, of incompleteness, of fragmentary 
ambitions and successes this existence is! And yet how sweet and dear it 
is made by love I That alone never fails to satisfy and fill the soul. 
Wealth satiates, anil ambition ceases to allure ; we weary of eating and 
drinking, of going up and down the earth looking at its mountains and 
seas, at the sky that arches it, at the moon and .stars that .shine upon it, 
but never of the soul that we love and that loves us, of the face that 
watches for us and grows bright when we come. 

The life record of this illustrious man was clo.sed in 

August, 1900. The devoted wife of his early manhood 



John Janus Iii<ra//s. 115 

and mature years sustained him to the end, walking with 

him to the very gate of the eternal city. As the light 

went out this beloved companion could have said with 

Longfellow : 

Good night, good night, as we so oft have said 
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days 
That are no more and shall no more return. 
Thou hast but taken the lamp and gone to bed; 
I stay a little longer, as one stays 
To cover up the embers that still burn. 

But I must not trespass longer upon the time of this 
House. 

Mr. Speaker, permit me to say in conclusion that John 
James Ing.^lls, living, was honored and loved by the 
people of Kansas, and, dying, his memory is cherished in 
their hearts with affectionate regard, and as an emblem 
0/ this regard they have placed this statue in our nation's 
Capitol and ask Congress to accept the same. [Loud ap- 
plause.] 



ii6 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Calderhead, of Kansas 

Mr. Speakkk: I rci,n-fl that tlu- duties of the last two 
weeks lia\e prevented me from ])reparin<j; wliat perhaps 
should have been prepared for this occasion; and yet I 
hope I ma\- be able in a few minutes to bear a little testi- 
mony from the State in which .Mr. Incai.i.s lived, the 
State which lo\ed him and which he lo\ed. After listen- 
ing to the eloquent discourses of some of the Senators in 
the other Chamber this afternoon and to the eloquent 
tributes that have been paid to his character and his 
memory b>- m\- colleagues here, I doubt whether anything 
that I could say would add to the value of these .ser\-ice.s. 

I ha\'e no disposition to sjiend an\- time ])hilos(i])hizing 
about the nature of life or the hope of immortalit\- or the 
probability of the life be\'ond. To me these things have 
been certain .so long that it hardly seems neces.sary that 
they .should be di.scu.s.sed. The step from this footstool 
before His throne only enters into that larger life of which 
in some way or other we are always conscious, and no 
testimony that has been gi\eu to us, except the testimony 
of Him " who spake as ne\er man spake," can add more 
to our knowledge of what He has intended for us there. 

I find that whoe\er liere speaks to me of Ixc.M.i.s 
expects that I should ha\e known him personally, inti- 
mately, and well. I came to Kansas about ten yeans after 
he did. The great conflict of the ci\il war was closed, 



John James Iitgalls. 117 

and the Connnonwealth was a Coiinnonwealth of peace, 
industry, and happiness when I came. Within four or 
five years after that time he was elected to the Senate, and 
I only met him at intervals of four or five years after that, 
until after his ser\'ice in the Senate had expired. I have 
lived thirt\--five years in the State, and I doubt whether 
I have had more than an hour's conversation with Mr. 
IngallS in all the years that we were in the .same State, 
we met so .seldom. And yet no one of us could be i.a:norant 
of the man or of his work. 

Without attempting to trespass upon your patience by 
repeating .some of the things that have been recited from 
his personal history, I will ask you to bear in mind that he 
came to Kansas in 185S, while Kansas Territor\' was still 
the arena of the greatest moral conflict that the world has 
seen in our civilization. Ideas were glowing with heat in 
all the affairs of men. The highest thoughts were con- 
tending. Passions of men, interests of partisan politics, 
fanaticism were in conflict with each other and in conflict 
with patriotism. 

Many of the men are yet living who were engaged 
in it then. For 50 miles inward from the Missouri 
border nearly every landscape had somewhere on it a 
stain of blood of the conflict between men in the battle 
for freedom, as well as for liberty. When he came the 
men were still li\'ing who had been engaged in that 
kind of a conflict, and the question of whether Kansas 
should be free or slave, the cjuestion of whether the 
nation should fight out its battle with itself and li\-e, 
was yet not settled. Statesmen and orators were debating 



Ii8 Acceptance of Statue of 

about the question of how human slavery could be 
extinguished in our country, under our form of govern- 
ment, and the Constitution be preserved. Great men 
argued the moral wrong of slavery, and presented it as 
if, in some way or other, the tremendous wrong of it 
ought to override the authority of law and destroy it. 
I will not attempt now to recount the steps by which 
the final conflict came — b)- which the final clash came. 
He was there — he was jjresent when it began; he lived 
through it. Me was couteuiporaueous with men of strong 
character and of great action. After it was all over and 
after the Commonwealth had been planted firmh- on a 
foundation of peace and prosperity, he was cho.sen Senator 
from among a coterie of the strongest men, I think, 
who e\er have opened a new Territorj- and builded a 
new vStale in this nation. Many elements in his character 
were unknown then, and some of them, perhaps, are not 
known yet. We lived so near him and .so much in his 
presence we can hardly realize what elements went to 
make uj) what he really was. But now, looking at his 
life as he lived it, reading his words as he gave them to 
us, gathering .some glimpses of the sphere in which he 
lived, it seems to me as if he had lived aloft in a higher 
sphere and from time to time descended to the ordinary 
walks and occupations of life ; so that when he was 
engaged in the political conflicts that resulted in his 
election as Senator he came down from a higher plane — a 
higher field of thought and contemplation — and with 
him he brought a range of vision and of thought that 
does not appear to us. The whole field of ancient histor\-, 



JoJui James IiigaUs. 119 

the story of the civilizations of the earth, the panorama 
of the nati(.)ns, and the story of onr race, appear to have 
been familiar to him and constantly with him. He 
seemed to have had them in contemplation every time 
he thought or spoke of the purpose and life of this 
nation. 

He was a Puritan, and his fathers for three centuries had 
lived as Puritans upon the soil where he was born. He 
had their faith, their hopes, their convictions, their mental 
habits as well as their moral purposes. He could not see 
libertv except through the vision which that faith gave 
him. He saw the purpose and the liberties and institutions 
of the nation as a Puritan. Somewhere in one of his 
essa}-s, in this beautiful memorial volume which his wife 
has collected and dedicated to the people of the State that 
he loved, is a paragraph which I think I will read in order 
that you ma\- see what seemed to be always present in his 
mind when he contemplated his work and his country. 

In one of his speeches he said : 

Mr. President, the race to which we belong is the most arrogant and 
rapacious, the most exclusive and indomitable, in history. It is the con- 
quering and unconquerable race, through which alone man has taken 
possession of the physical and moral world. To our race humanity is 
indebted for religion, for literature, for civilization. It has a genius for 
conquest, for politics, for jurisprudence, and for administration. The 
home and the family are its contributions to society. Individualism, fra- 
ternity, liberty, and equality have been its contributions to the state. .\11 
other races have been its enemies or its victims. 

This, sir, is not the time, nor is this the occasion, to consider the pro- 
foundly interesting question of the unity of races. It is sufficient to say 
that either by instinct or design the Caucasian race at every step of its 
progress from barbarism to enlightenment has refused to mingle its blood 
or assimilate with the two other great human families, the Mongolian and 
the African, and has persistently rejected adulteration. It has found 
the fullest and most complete realization of its fundamental ideas of 



1 20 Acceptance of Statue of 

government and society upon this continent, and there can lie no doubt 
that upon this arena its future and most magnificent triumphs are to be 
accomplished. 

The exiles of riyni<nith and of Jamestown l)rouj,'hl hither jiolitical and 
social ideas which have developed with inconceivable energy and power. 
They ventured u])on a hitherto untried experiment, a daring innovation, 
a paradox in government. 

They who rule are those who are to be governed. The rulers frame the 
law to which they themselves must submit. The Icings are the subjects, 
and those who are free voluntarily surrender a portion of their freedom 
that their own liberties may be more secure. The ablest soothsayer could 
not have foretold the wonderful development of the first century of 
American nationality, the increase in papulation, the expanse of boun- 
dary, the aggrandizement of re.sources. The frontier has Iieen abolished; 
the climate has been conquered; the desert subdued. Kor these con- 
ditions, which could not have been preilicted, for which there were 
neither maxims, nor formulas, nor precedents, the genius of the Caucasian 
race has furnished an equivalent in the Constitution under which we live, 
an organic law flexible enough to permit indefinite and unlimited expan- 
sion and at the same time rigid enough hitherto to protect the rights of 
the weakest and the humblest from invasion. 

l''rom its latent resources have been evoked vast and unsu,s])ected powers 
that have become the charters of liberty to the victims of its misconstruc- 
tion; beneath its beneficent covenants every faith has found a shelter, 
every creed a sanctuary, and every wrong redress. It has reconciled 
interests that were api)arently in irrepressible conflict. It has resisted the 
rancour of party spirit, the vehemence of faction, the perils of foreign 
immigration, the collision of civil war, the jealous menace of foreign and 
hostile nations. It has realized up to this time the splendid dream of the 
great Knglish apostle of modern liberty, who said in the midst of the 
struggle for the dismemberment of the American I'nion: 

"I have another and a broader vision before my gaze. It may be a 
vision, but I cherish it. I see one vast confederation reaching from the 
frozen north in unbroken line to the glowing south, and from the wild 
billows of the Atlantic to the calmer waters of the Pacific main; and I 
see one people and one language and one law and one faith, and all over 
that wide continent a home of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed of 
every race and every clime." 

It was this great ideal of llic liberties and fiiHirc of our 

nation which he .seemed to have constantly before him. 

He .spoke of it, he thonght of it, he wrote of it, and 

scarcely an\- jmblic address of his can be fonnd that in 



Joint J antes Iiigalls. I2i 

some way does not incite our admiration of his ideal of 
it. It would be useless for me now to attempt to eulo- 
gize such a master of the English language. He played 
in the intellectual arena as a skillful swordsman with a 
rapier, and whoever came into contact with him most 
feared him. I think there was in his sensitive soul the 
fear of a larger conflict. I doul)t whether he ever for a 
moment felt an\- fear of a man as a man. I do not think 
he ever felt any fear of debate or of the intellectual com- 
bat with another man. Yet I think he always shrank 
from the criticism of an adverse popular opinion. He 
.sometimes said that popular opinion was the real sover- 
eign of this nation and nnist always be so in a govern- 
ment like ours, that the " popular opinion " made and 
unmade administrations, parties, and men, and I think he 
shrank from the battle of it. 

If he feared anything it was the impersonal mass, the 
ruthless tAraim\-, the rash, impetuous action of a mis- 
guided, unthinking nudtitude that might mean the 
destruction of the beautiful ideal nation. He could see 
the calamity which could come in this wa}-, and he felt 
the terror of it and felt the helplessness of one individ- 
ual in an^• contest with it. Yet he had in him the ele- 
ments that would lia\'e made him a martyr to a principle 
of faith. He would ha\e died for the thing that he 
believed as freely and as bravely as any martyr ever 
went to the stake for a faith. 

There are enough incidents in his life to bear testi- 
mony to this. 



122 Acceptance of Statue of 

I do not think he had selected himself for fame. It 
is easy to say of a man with such an illustrious career 
that he had an ambition, and it is easy to say of him 
that he sought the Senate to gratify his ambition. I do 
not tliink it could quite l)e said of him. I know he did 
not .seek the i)lace that we are now giving liiiu, and did 
not dream that it was his. He sought to ser\e Kansas; 
he .sought to serve a nation as one of the race that had 
made it. He did not .seek honor for honor's sake. He 
sought .service, and honor came. I said that I know that 
he did not seek the place which we are now giving 
him. Speaking of another he said this: 

The old Hall of the House of Representatives in the Capitol at Y.'ashinj^- 
ton, which is consecrated by the genius, the wisdom, and the patriotism 
of the statesmen of the first century of .Xmerican history, has been desig- 
nated by Congress a.s a national gallery of statuary, to which each State is 
invited to contribute two bronze or marble statues of her citizens, illus- 
trious for their historic renown, or from distinguished civic and military 
services. 

It will be long before this silent congregation is complete. With tardy 
footsteps they slowly ascend their pedestals; voiceless orators, who.se stony 
eloquence will salute and inspire the generations of freemen to come; 
bronze warriors, whose unsheathed swords seem yet to direct the onset, 
and whose command will pass from century to century, inspiring an 
unbroken line of heroes to guard with ceaseless care the heritage their 
valor won. 

Kansas is yet in her youth. .She has no a.ssociations that are venerable 
by age. -Ml her dead have been the contemporaries of those who yet live. 
The verdict of posterity can only be anticipated. But, like all conununi- 
ties, we have had our heroic era, and it has closed. 

Then lie j^roceeded to suggest another name for this 
place. Hut we ha\e selected him. 

At various times in our State we have discussed the 
question of which one of the men who built the Common- 
wealth of Kansas should be .selected for this place. But 



Jolui James lugalls. 123 

the warm g'enerous heart of Hon. Bailey Pe^■ton Waggener, 
a friend and neighbor in his home cit^• thongh of the 
opposite political faith, selected and named Ingalls as 
the voice which most represented Kansas. 

When Mr. Waggener, who is an able and eminent 
lawyer, as a member of the Kan.sas legislatnre proposed 
the resolntion pro^•iding for this statue, it was passed by 
the unanimous vote of l)otli houses. It was the tribute 
of a noble nature to a friend. It came from one who also 
loved Kansas, and the State responded as to the warm 
hand clasp of a friend. And now to this hall of fame we 
give this statue. 

Kansas is the child of Plymouth Rock. It is .sometimes 
said she is the daughter of Ma.s.sachusetts, and it is this 
son of Massachusetts, coming in a direct line from the 
land at Plymouth Rock, whom we bring back and put in 
Statuary Hall to stand speaking the voice of liberty to 
liberty's children as the centuries come and go. [Applause.] 



1 24 Acceptance of Statue of 



Address of Mr. Murdock, of Kansas 

Mr. Si'KAKkk: At a reception in tlic AVhite House, not 
lonfj ago, the slowly moving line of guests conjectured 
upon the identity of a certain bust, the name graven upon 
which was ol)scurc. None guessed aright, as was proved 
when some one, leaxing the line and reading the inscrip- 
tion on the marble, introduced through the haze of half a 
centur\- to the questioning company the thirteenth Presi- 
dent of the I'nited States — Millard Fillmore. 

Remembering the incident, wliile I stood before the 
image there the other day, the fanc\' came to me that long 
hence, when the golden centuries shall lie rich upon the 
hoar\- nation's history, when a score of wars shall have 
added a thousand statues here, a thousand debates a .score, 
when the .sculptor shall have survived tlie sculptured, and 
.\rt, preserving what History can not save, shall have 
survived Imth, that llun .some one may still remember 
IXG.^LL.s — Ingalls, of Kansas; In(;aij..s, the iucautiou.s, 
the daring, the unique — remember him as one who pre- 
.served his own personality, persisted in his own jjoint of 
view, gave audience to impulse, voice to impression ; as 
one who upon occasion loved a whim as dearly as a con- 
viction, and both in the gravity of a small crisis and the 
abandon of a catachsm remained the saniL- Ing.-vlls, sur- 
rendering no shade of native re.solution upon the demand 
of an\- man or men or situatiftu wliatsoever. 



Joint James Ingalls. 125 

For the Ingalls who, at graduation, wasped the owlish 
professors in \outh was the stinging Ingalls of the Senate 
in matnrit\-, as the Ingalls of 30 with a soul responding 
to the ministry of the Kansas landscape was the Ingalls 
of the Senate reaching for the Infinite in the marvelous 
eulogies he there pronounced, was the dying Ingalls re- 
peating softly the Lord's Prayer. 

For the Ingalls of youth, the Ingalls of eighteen 
years' Senatorial activit}-, and the Ingalls old and in 
defeat are the same — Ingalls always; politicalh- impos- 
sible at times, perhaps, but colorless, never. 

And Kansas gives a statue notably exceptional herein : 
That before this day no commonwealth has ever given to a 
satirist in political life a statue. Literature, too, .seldom 
so rewards them, for there is no Cer\-antes — marble or 
bronze — I am told, in all Spain. Dean Swift's memory, 
if we depended upon art for it, would rest with a bust. 
Ancient Athens, I have read, had at one time more 
statues than population, with not a satirist among them, I 
dare say. 

This is the wonder in this earnest of Ingalls's perma- 
nent renown. He remained through life himself creator 
and sole sponsor of the chance children of his brain. He 
resisted analysis. He defied the political \ardstick. No 
single phrase will measure him. No strictly partisan mind 
ever comprehended and no parti.san pen ever described 
him. Long activity in Washington works to a procrus- 
tean average, seeks to put a common stature upon all who 
grind through it. It never cut the personality of John J. 
Ingalls an inch or stretched it a barleycorn. He knew, 



126 Acceptance of Sintite of 

depend upon it, the fixed and rudimentary method of per- 
sonal politics, and he scorned them. He understood to the 
last syllable the game of those who ventured all b\' conjur- 
ing with a single great advocacy ; the game, too, of those 
who ordered their careers in au imponderable and impene- 
trable negation, and, with cheer, ])ul ihcni away from liini ; 
knew the wavering loyalty that follows defense, and when 
he pleased defended; knew also that attack politically is 
no part of defense, and needing defense, forthwith, light of 
heart and to the consternation of his political adherents, 
attacked. He never, .so far as I know, bought au advantage 
cheaply with a guarded a.'i.sertiou or a qualified indorse- 
ment; never hid the main i.ssue in the emphasis of a 
nonessential. No consideration of .safet\' commanded his 
silence. All patience he had with the completely serious 
and discreet of the political world, as is meet, but he did 
not always withhold a glance of interest at the daring and 
defying who u]H)n occasion put drama into a dun world. 

And the shar]x-st of his own weapons he carried lightlv 
to the last — .satire — the weapon which evcrv aspirant in 
politics discards instinctively in the primary grade, and 
which no man ever carried in politics, save to disa.ster. 

For IxG.\LLS in his da\- breathed au atmosphere heavy 
with a vigorous commercialism — a commercialism which 
expected that all should forget, iu the radiance of its 
mighty achievements, that it was granting the divine 
right to the majority stockholder and holding inviolate 
the sanctity of all success, a commercialism which de- 
manded that partisan politics, in deference due to high 
endeavor, should turn deaf aud blind to certain attendant 



Joliii James Iiigalh. 127 

tendencies in an epoch that wonld have asked Peter the 
Hermit to facilitate the crusade by an issue of bonds; 
driven the masked Junius to the advertising pages to 
avoid libel, and, if encouraged in a utilitarian way, would 
have mourned doubtless the waste of imcommercialized 
energy in the beat of the sparrow's wings. 

Once into such an atmosphere Ixgalls threw a glove. 
He gave a famous interview, in which he declared that 
the purification of politics was an iridescent dream. He 
was not inculcating a doctrine but describing a condition. 
He was challenging, not violating, the ideals of the 
Republic. The purification of politics is not an irides- 
cent dream. The march has been away from the open 
and controlled ballot to the secret and uncontrolled one, 
away from the unguarded primary to the safeguarded 
one, away from the bad and to the good, not to new 
ideals, but to reawakened devotion to old ideals. 

It is noteworth>', I think, that a satirist, by his chal- 
lenge, helped to di\-ert the march awa}- from bad and to 
the good. It is entirely within all precedent, I think, 
that he should have suffered for his challenge; but it is 
notably exceptional, I declare, ;\Ir. Speaker, that after 
such splendid hardihood the satirist should be at all — 
.should be so .soon — rewarded. [Loud applau.se.] 

I\Ir. CuRTi.S. ]\Ir. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
to take from the Speaker's table the resolutions of the 
Senate in regard to the IxG.\LLS statue, and that the 
same be placed upon their final passage. 

The Spe.^ker pro tempore (Mr. Reeder). The Clerk 
will report the resolutions. 



^^^fi 



128 AccTptaiice of Slatiic of Jolni Ja»ics Installs. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring). That 
the statue of John J. Incali^, presented by the State of Kansas to be 
placed in Statuan' Hall, is accepted in the name of the United States, and 
that the thanks of Congress be tendered the State for the contribution of 
the statue of one of its most eminent citizens, illustrious for his distin- 
guished civic services. 

Second, that a copy of these resolutions, suitably engrossed and duly 
authenticated, be transmitted to the governor of the State gf Kansas. 

The question was taken ; and the resolntions were 
nnaninioiisly agreed to. 

Mr. Curtis. Mr. Speaker, I understand .some gentle- 
men who have .spoken this afternoon desire leave to 
extend their remarks in the Record, and I ask unani- 
mous consent that that leave be granted. 

The Spe.\ker pro tempore. If there be no objection, 
it will be .so ordered. 

There was no objection. 

Mr. Curtis. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do 
now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to; and accordingly (at 5 
o'clock and 40 minutes p. ni.) the House adjourned to 
meet on Mondav at 12 o'clock noon. 



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013 785 527 




